


Wars Waged In Us

by belderiver



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Canon - Original Game, Character Study, Eventual Found Family, F/M, Gen, Holding hands in the face of the apocalypse, Human Experimentation, Role Reversal, Roleswap, Shippy Gen, Slow Burn, The long twisting arc of recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:41:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 68,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belderiver/pseuds/belderiver
Summary: “I found your records,” Sephiroth explained, both of his hands curled tightly at his sides. “You’re half Cetran. One of the rightful heirs to this Planet.”To his surprise, Aeris interrupted with strained laughter.“Whatever it is you want to use me for, I swear that I can’t help you. They just take pieces of me until they have what they need. I barely know the first thing about being an ‘heir to the Planet.’” She spat the words as each syllable ran bitter over her tongue.“In that way, we are the same.” The introduction he’d been waiting to deliver now tumbled from his mouth. "My mother was of Cetran blood. Until tonight, I thought I was the sole survivor of the Ancients. Until… you."
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Sephiroth, Aerith Gainsborough/Sephiroth, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 388
Kudos: 275





	1. Prologue: Long Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> "Freedom is what we do with what is done to us."  
>  _Jean-Paul Sartre_
> 
>  **Summary**  
>  Nibelheim still stands, unburnt. In the wake of Sephiroth's discovery about his Ancient heritage, infantryman Cloud Strife strikes a Faustian bargain.
> 
> Believing himself chosen by the Planet, Sephiroth becomes a furious and brutal member of the anti-Shinra resistance. When he chances across Aeris, held captive in the gilded cage of Neo-Midgar, they both discover they are not as alone as they think.
> 
>  **About**  
>  This story is about self-determination, the winding road of recovery, and how that journey unfolds when you've recognized yourself in someone else. The prologue features Cloud and Hojo, but the main characters are Aeris and Sephiroth, with Tifa and Cloud as secondary leads. That said, I love FFVII and its cast very dearly, so you can expect to see the main cast in supporting roles eventually and you won't find any character bashing. This is not a retelling of canon with characters swapped, though you'll recognize major events here and there. Compilation canon has been largely discarded. The rating mainly indicates violence and language. 
> 
> Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you like what you find.

A pale dawn had come to Nibelheim. The light arrived slowly, leaving a band of violet and starlight as it climbed over the mountains and pushed back the night. Against the sunrise, the old mansion struck a dark, proud silhouette. On its roof, a patinaed weathervane creaked softly as it turned in the lilting wind, adding to the gentle rustle of the budding lilacs and scrubby cypresses on the manor grounds. Professor Hojo had seen this scene many times before, and so could tell you for a fact it would have been much more idyllic if not marred by columns of black smoke rising at intervals from the horizon.

There were fewer left than there had been, or so he was given to understand, but daylight brought what had happened into sharp relief both figuratively and literally. A clipboard rested in the crook of his arm, a pen poised in his hand, ready to record detailed notes in his loping doctor’s cursive. He had already received a rough overview of the previous night’s disaster, but had only managed to commit a single note to the page:

_“Sephiroth - gone.”_

He frowned down at the words, annoyed at their meaning, annoyed at the empty space around them, annoyed at his own lack of focus. He clicked his pen decisively closed and replaced it in his breast pocket. There was, if he permitted it, a highly unpleasant feeling crawling through him that couldn't be categorized as annoyance. He turned his mind from it. That was something he could deal with later, very privately, if at all.

There was one more thing vexing him. A familiar droning sound that often interrupted his thoughts to his great irritation: Other people talking. In this case, frantic people talking, people who not only insisted on inserting themselves into the situation, but who lacked the sense and good manners to be quiet about it.

“This is unbelievable,” a middle-aged man with a moustache was shouting. He jabbed an accusing finger at the ranking officer, who so happened to be Zack Fair, an excitable young man not particularly known for his de-escalation skills. He was handling the situation about as well as Hojo might have predicted, which amounted to him holding out both of his palms and gesturing for the older man to calm down.

It wasn’t working.

“You sent my daughter off with that lunatic,” he continued with another righteous stab of his finger. “Now half the damn mountain’s on fire and you want her to walk you through it? Are you crazy?”

“Papa,” protested a mortified teenaged girl with a shock blanket draped around her shoulders. “Please!”

“Yeah, mister,” echoed Zack, “Please!” The older man sputtered at the audacity. It won Zack an opening, if not any points with Mr. Lockhart.

“Listen, we’re as shocked as you are, here,” he said, scratching his temple, “But the priority now is working out exactly what happened and making sure this situation stays under control. To do that, we need information. To get information, we gotta find a way back up the mountain. You got me?”

“She’s not going up there,” Mr. Lockhart concluded, crossing his arms sternly. “Not ‘til you’ve found him and made sure he's not… dangerous.”

“Okay, good,” Zack clapped him on the shoulder with a force that betrayed his frustration. “You think it over. I’ll be right back. Doctor!”

Hojo straightened his glasses as Zack jogged toward him. Over his shoulder, Mr. Lockhart’s face was turning a very entertaining shade of scarlet.

“You in charge here, sir?” asked Zack. “Where’s the chief?”

“Director Tseng’s posted on the other side of the mountain path. From the looks of it, he’s already passed through.”

“Shit,” Zack breathed sharply, planting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “Any intel?”

“Fair,” the Professor answered in warning tones, “I’m waiting for _your_ report, not the other way around.”

“Right, right. I don’t know if I’ve got anything new for you. As far as we know, he left the mansion around 2300 and as you can see, he did NOT want to be followed.” Zack jerked his head and his thumb back toward the manor, smoking mountains in the background - as though anyone could possibly miss it.

“Everything past the town gates went up in flames. We got it under control, but the power’s been out since 0200 or so - between that and the smoke trails, we figure he must have hit the reactor at some point. We’re trying to get up there to see if the thing might blow, but the locals, ah, aren’t cooperating.” He raked a hand back through his already messy hair and looked skyward, as though a checklist of the details he was meant to cover hung in the air, somewhere over Hojo’s left ear.

“Minor injuries, no civilian casualties - They’re good and spooked, though... Hey, don’t give me that look, Doc. I’ve been fighting fires here, literally. Cloud says they spoke a little before he left, you oughtta try him.”

Hojo pushed his glasses up to pinch the bridge of his nose with a sigh. Who the hell was Cloud? He flipped through the papers on his clipboard in search of the personnel sheet.

“I assume we’re discussing Private Strife?”

“Bingo. Think he’s still at the mansion - want me to go grab him?”

“No,” said Hojo, arranging his papers and dropping his clipboard to his side. He glanced over Zack’s shoulder, where Mr. Lockhart had apparently taken to firmly and loudly stating his position to his beleaguered daughter, in the absence of a better target. With a grimace, Hojo looked back to Zack. “Keep... fighting fires.”

It felt strange, walking up the path to the manor again. When he’d shut the creaking gate behind him twenty-some years ago, he hadn’t expected to return, much less under the present circumstances.

The inside of it was much like the outside - unsettling in its familiarity, and even more so in all the tiny little ways it had changed. It felt like walking into a memory that had started to rot. The atmosphere was all mildew and anxious energy, and as much as he liked to consider himself impervious to the latter, the Professor allowed himself a bit of dawdling at the out-of-tune piano before he pressed deeper into the house.

The stairs - the stairs were really what got him. He had walked that spiral six times a day for thirteen months and hated every goddamn step. They were even more precarious now than they had ever been, groaning under his weight the whole way down. Gast had always told him not to look so dour, that it was the only exercise they ever got.

Gast was an idiot.

“Strife?” Echoes, but no answer. Hojo paused in front of the heavy door in the corridor, rapping his knuckles against it a few times. No answer there, either, nor any sign of a breach. Small blessings. He pressed onward to the lab.

“Private Strife?”

It almost hurt to look at. Whole rows of books had been pulled down from their shelves, the volumes deemed useful piled in uneven stacks around the room. The leftovers were littered in heaps, and it was easy to imagine some had been thrown there with careless and unreasonable force. The equipment fared no better. Much of it was in pieces, pushed in haste or anger from the tables to make space for more teetering pillars of old journals. The rest of it - the rest of everything left untouched - was caked in grime and dust from years of abandonment.

Hojo withdrew his pen, clicked it open again, and added the word “ _tantrum_ ” to his notes.

“Professor Hojo?”

The private emerged from the back of the library. Ash still clung to his shock of blond hair and to his uniform, which had also been singed in a few places. One of Hojo’s old project journals hung limply in his hand. His brow was knit in a certain temperamental dismay, an inevitable symptom of his age; he appeared to be somewhere in his teens.

Hojo sighed and readied his clipboard.

“Fair tells me you spoke to Sephiroth last. Report.”

It was, apparently, too much to hope for that Cloud might simply deliver his report. Instead he stayed silent, staring at the floor with his jaw clenched. He tossed the journal loose and underhanded into one of many discard piles, watching its arc and fall.

“You know what happened, don’t you?” He looked hard at Hojo. “He found what you left in the reactor. Then, he found this room, where I guess he found out the rest. Now he’s gone.”

“Did he say anything?” Hojo repeated, feeling his patience evaporating.

“Yeah, he said a lot of things. About being an Ancient and inheriting some great destiny. About Shinra stealing the planet, and how he was chosen to stop them.”

“Very grandiose,” Hojo clipped, underlining the word “ _tantrum_ ” twice. After a pause, he forced himself to jot the rest of it down in shorthand. It was a paltry amount of information, but he was resigned to it for the moment. There would be time later, and hopefully sources less given to youthful moodiness. “Who else knows?” he asked without looking up.

“Just Zack and me, sir. Will that be a problem?”

“I imagine,” Hojo finished writing, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and fixed the young private with a meaningful look, “that depends on you.”

With a little nod to himself, he tucked the clipboard away under his arm. Confident that he had communicated the thin ice Private Strife had found himself upon, Hojo turned to leave, and was promptly interrupted.

“Professor, you... You were a part of all this, weren’t you? You... made him.”

The ice grew thinner.

“What of it?” he snapped.

“Can the experiment be repeated?”

“I— beg your pardon?”

“Can it be repeated,” Cloud asked louder, firmer. “Can you make me like him?”

He turned back from the entrance and stepped further in the lab. It was rare to catch the Professor off guard these days, or so he liked to think. His work had been accused of lacking vision, but he had a talent for predicting which way the wind would blow. His fingers brushed over the table where their equipment had been, across the glass shard of a broken titration flask. He didn’t, usually, have cause to stop and think about these things.

“It’s somewhat more complicated than pouring baking soda into a volcano,” he said slowly, doubtfully, cradling his chin ponderously in his hand. “It hasn’t yet been done, there are countless variables, and who can say what the odds of success are if you don’t begin with the correct… _materials_.”

“I’m not.”

“Come again?”

“I’m not the correct materials.”

Cloud spoke evenly, matter-of-fact, his blue eyes fixed determinedly on the Professor nevertheless. He held himself straighter, the fists clenched at his sides seeming less like a product of adolescent angst than renewed resolve. It seemed as though in the moment Hojo had looked away, the boy had aged, somehow.

“I failed to become a SOLDIER. I don’t know that I’m even much of a private. The ride here made me sick, and I couldn’t leave so much as a scratch on any of the monsters running rampant - in _my_ hometown. Threatening _my_ friends, _my_ family.

“I can’t just accept it. I won’t. I don’t care what happens to me. If there’s even the smallest chance… Please, Professor.”

He deflated a little, whatever ghost had possessed him dissipating, but his gaze remained leveled stubbornly at the Professor. The fraught silence of consideration hung between them. It broke with a bark of Hojo’s laughter.

“Well, well…” he chuckled. “I suppose it’s possible that will may count for something.”

* * *

Miles away and hours ago, still cloaked in the heavy shroud of night, Sephiroth raked his fingers one last time through the ash, then pulled wearily to his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Nautilusopus, without whom this fic would likely not exist, and to la_regina_scrive and everyone else in our motley little crew for support and encouragement. Thank you also to tastygoldentaters who beta read this chapter.


	2. Throw Her to the Earth

**5 years later...**

* * *

The mountain guide raised her voice above the howling wind to ask: "Which way?"

Aeris struggled forward against the frigid gale. A flurry of thick white snowflakes blew back into her face and stung what little skin wasn't covered by knitted wool or chocobo down. By this point, the snow felt more like shards of ice. She squinted into the whiteout, past where the guide stood. There were two paths ahead of them, one that led upward and one downward. For all that she could see, both directions went nowhere except further into the storm - but her eyes couldn't lead them to what they were seeking. She squeezed them shut and breathed in the cold air, shivering.

"It's... below us?" she concluded with a frown. It was a stab in the dark. She tried to divine the answer the "right" way first, the way that everyone wanted her to, by stilling herself, opening her heart, waiting for a sign or a voice or a tingling in her fingertips. She pleaded for an answer. Nothing came. More often than not, nothing did. All that was left was simple intuition. It wasn’t very satisfying, but it wasn’t as though anyone could question her methods either. Besides, no one in the expedition party wanted to stand around being buried in the snow. At least heading down the cliffside would take them leeward of the bitter wind.

The SOLDIER in lead motioned to Aeris and the rest of their company and began the descent easily, despite the uncertain terrain. At the fork, the guide waited. Tifa, she'd said her name was, if Aeris was remembering it right. The wind caught her dark hair and whipped it against her back as she kept diligent watch of the rest of the travellers.

"Be careful," she warned.

"Don't worry," chirped Aeris, “I’ve done this plenty of times.” The path narrowed in front of her and the snow at her feet was already piled higher than the tops of her boots. Underneath it, she could feel thick ice covering the face of the rock. Careful was the only option, and she undertook it with both arms outstretched for balance. 

“Hurry up,” demanded one of the guardsmen at her back.

“Don’t rush me, it’s rude t— whoa!”

As she brought her foot down, Aeris felt her heel slip out from under her. Her arms pinwheeled as she skidded forward through the snow, toward the ledge — but Tifa had waited, braced against the rock, for exactly this reason. She caught Aeris by the forearm, stopping her short of disaster. As much as it hurt to crack her knees against the ice, Aeris could only imagine the crunch her bones might have made if she had gone careening over the precipice instead. She peered cautiously over it to watch a drift of snow fall over the edge into nothingness, then scrabbled slowly backwards. When she looked up, the concern on Tifa’s face was obvious.

“You okay? You really have to take it slow out here.”

“Y-yeah, thank you.”

Behind the knit of her scarf, Aeris smiled sheepishly. She had already been glad for Tifa’s presence, and now with smarting knees and renewed awareness of the precariousness of the trail, her appreciation went double. Much of the surrounding area had yet to be charted, and Tifa seemed one of the more adaptable guides, well-suited to treacherous terrain and terrible weather. Besides her skill, it was kind of nice getting to spend the day with a girl her own age. Almost like having a friend.

“Hey!” The SOLDIER doubled back up the path, and the lamp-like glow of his eyes made the aggravation in his face obvious even through the haze of snow. “What were the orders?”

“To protect the Ancient, sir!”

“Yeah, so maybe stay sharp enough to keep her from breaking her neck. You alright, Tifa?”

“We’re good up here, Cloud,” she answered. “Here, help me - we’ll set up some rope.”

The guardsmen shuffled obediently forward. They pulled Aeris up between them and she brushed the snow from her front, watching Cloud as he bounded effortlessly back down the decline, rope in hand. They’d spent plenty of time together in the labs, but this was the first time he’d been assigned to one of her expeditions, and the exception was stranger than the rule. Wasn’t the Zero-SOLDIER a little overqualified for this job? Not to mention high-profile.

“Okay, everybody grab on - Aeris, stay in the middle, please - and we’ll be down there in a flash.”

It took more than a flash, but with Tifa’s guidance and encouragement, they made it to level ground without further incident. Aeris’ knees throbbed the whole while. Tseng always wanted to stick to flyovers, but sometimes the site or the weather just wouldn’t permit it. She typically enjoyed her little adventures, but even away from the worst of the wind’s bite, Aeris wished this hadn’t been one of those times. 

“There’s a cave up ahead,” announced Cloud, squinting across the field.

“This way?” Aeris trudged forward and held a magenta mitten up to her brow. She couldn’t make out anything more than distant rocks, but she didn’t have SOLDIER eyes to rely on. If he said there was a cave, then there probably was. It sounded promising. Shelter sounded even better. She summoned cheer and confidence into her voice. “Yep, that's definitely it.”

“Take it slow, everyone,” instructed Tifa. “The ground might not be as even as it looks.”

When they reached the mouth of the cave, all of them knew immediately that it was worth the trip. The light they cast into the chasm reflected in deep blues and greens off its sloping, crystalline walls. Even if they didn’t find any interesting materia for the SOLDIER stockpiles, there was definitely a mako deposit here substantial enough to make the energy division happy. Aeris smiled to herself. It was still surprising to her how often her wild guesses at what _felt_ right bore fruit, but she supposed that was why she was here in the first place.

“Finally,” sighed one of the guardsmen. The lower half of his face, the part not covered by his helmet, had a round and childish look, and he had a voice to match. “I was getting worried we’d be wandering around in that blizzard ‘til dark.”

“What do you think’s inside?” said the other, leaning in to get a closer look.

“Mentioned you’re into materia, didn’t you Piette?” Cloud cut in. He stepped further into the cave, holding a Light materia aloft, his other hand planted on his hip.

“Er — I didn’t think you’d remember that, sir, but yes.”

“Cool. We’ll be back in a bit with something that’ll blow your mind.” Cloud cracked a cocksure smile as he looked back over his shoulder. Piette started with excitement — at the materia, or the acknowledgement from the Zero-SOLDIER, or both — but Cloud’s gaze had moved on to Tifa, who was coiling the climbing rope with practiced hands and watching Cloud with gentle amusement. Aeris studied the two of them. They certainly seemed familiar with one another. Maybe that was why Cloud was here.

“You two keep watch here. We don’t want any nasties sneaking up on us while we’re in there.”

“Right,” nodded the babyface, striking a clumsy salute as Piette struck another to match. With a nod, Cloud waited for Tifa and Aeris to cast their own Light materia and the three of them pressed further into the dark of the tunnel.

Spelunking could be dangerous, but the caves were always spectacular, and each of them a little different. The walls of this one were mostly dark turquoise shot through with purple, all of it glimmering and iridescent like beetles’ wings. Aeris pulled off her gloves and let her fingertips skate across the surface of the rock as they walked, privately delighting in the change of scenery. All three of them drank in the peculiar sight as they pressed forward through the darkness. Unlike most of her missions, they didn’t do so in silence.

“Kind of reminds me of home,” said Tifa, a smile in her voice. “I wonder if it would have looked like this eventually, if they hadn’t built the reactor.”

“It might’ve. You miss Nibelheim yet?”

“After how long it took to leave? Nope!” Tifa laughed. Cloud joined her.

“Me neither.”

“So you _do_ know each other,” interjected Aeris, leaning forward between them with her hands clasped behind her back. It was strange. Before today, she had no idea Cloud could be so amicable.

“It’s none of your business,” grumbled Cloud, looking and sounding suddenly much more like himself as he fixed Aeris with a surly expression.

“Don’t be mean,” scolded Tifa, countering Cloud's moody face with a friendly one. “It’s funny you didn’t know, though. Everybody seems to talk about it. Cloud’s the one that got me this job."

“You got it yourself, Tif, I just recommended you.”

“Well, _I_ know that, but I still get asked if I’m ‘your girlfriend or something’ constantly.”

“ _Oh_?” asked Aeris, suddenly greatly interested. She hadn’t counted on cave gossip. “Why’s that?”

“We’re old friends, and I guess it shows. It's hard to believe, but before I came here, we’d only spoken in letters for years!” 

“I see, I see…” Aeris tapped a finger thoughtfully against her chin and considered them both. None of it seemed to phase Tifa, but Cloud’s shoulders were in bunches as he listened to the two of them. Apparently, he wasn’t having as much fun as she was; she had to admit, that made it even more fun. The dim light hid her impish grin as she pressed again. “What _kind_ of letters?”

“Okay, that’s enough. We nearly there, Cetra?” Cloud snapped.

“Um — Wait,” Tifa looked uncertainly between the two of them. “Your name is Aeris, I thought?” 

“He knows it is,” Aeris grumbled.

She couldn’t tell them how much farther, but felt they were drawing closer, and this time she could rely on her eyes to guide her. The path ahead broadened and curved out of sight, the glow of something luminous reflecting off the walls in vibrant streaks of violet. They rounded the bend carefully in case of danger, but there was none. Waiting there for them was a crystalline pillar of mako, stretching from floor to ceiling, each strand of the structure as thin and delicate as spun glass. Suspended in its centre was a piece of materia, shining bright and red.

“Beautiful,” Tifa breathed.

Cloud admired it as well for a moment, but pragmatism quickly overtook his sense of wonder. He readied his sword and stepped forward, scanning the column for the best point to break it.

“Hold on,” said Aeris, “I can reach it.”

The two of them watched as she slipped her hand carefully into a gap in the structure. It was lucky they were small. With a bit of effort, the ends of her fingers grazed the materia, tugged it closer, then closed around it. 

In a flood of memory and borrowed emotion, it told her its name and a piece of its story. It wasn't a happy one, but then, they never were. Afterimage swam in her mind's eye as some foreign mourning overtook her heart. She often wondered if it was only pain that reached across the ages like this, locked in crystal for strangers to bring to war. Bowing her head, she thanked it privately for entrusting her with its power and carefully pulled the materia free of its crystal cage.

“Sylph,” she repeated its name for the group as she pressed it into Cloud’s waiting hand.

“What’s it do?” he asked, holding it up for examination, as though he might find instructions.

“Wind magic. It’ll heal your friends, hurt your enemies.”

“It’s amazing that you can tell right away. How do you do it?” asked Tifa. Her eyes were round with interest, and her smile bright and easy. Cloud looked askance. Tifa asked with such levity, it was clear she had no idea how many times someone had demanded that Aeris answer some permutation of the same question.

Aeris considered her response. Even if she did want to talk about it, what would she say? She lived with her hands submerged in an ocean no one else could see or feel. Cloud, Tifa, Tseng, wild chocobos and wood lice and everyone she’d ever sold a flower to in Midgar — all of them moved through life unconscious of the ripples and wakes they created. All the little waves waxed and waned and washed at her, auguring nothing until suddenly they did. And when they did, it was impossible to miss.

At least, she thought it was like that. Despite having crossed it now, she’d never actually seen the ocean, much less put her hands in it.

“Oh, you know. Just Ancient stuff,” Aeris said with a shrug.

“Right, right,” said Tifa, a little embarrassed now for asking. “Sorry, I really didn’t know anything about Ancients before today! And you don’t seem any different from a regular person to me."

Aeris’ chest swelled as shame and joy battled over whether to take that statement as a compliment.

“Talk on the way,” said Cloud, replacing his sword on his back. “We don’t want to leave the guys out in the cold.”

They took him up on that until partway through the cave. Cloud heard it first - the staccato echo of gunfire. With a grave look back to both of them, he sped onward. The scream that came soon after made Aeris' stomach twist; the silence that followed was worse. She broke into a run after him.

By the time they reached the mouth of the cave, Piette and his babyfaced friend lay dead in the snow, scarlet seeping out from under them. Tifa rushed to the side of one soldier, groping for a pulse. Just from looking at the deep gashes through his middle, she must have known she wouldn’t find one. Cloud knelt next to Piette, but his eye was elsewhere, turned out into the storm as though he had spotted something. Aeris followed his line of sight. Just barely, she could make out a flicker of black as something ominous disappeared into the white.

"They're gone," said Tifa, her voice breaking a little. Cloud stood.

"Tifa," he said. Her eyes stayed on the soldier's corpse as she rose to her feet, at least until Cloud reached out to grip her shoulders. She looked up. "Take Aeris and get back to the chopper. Fast as you can, okay?"

“Okay,” she said. He let go of her shoulders when she started nodding. Her voice grew steadier, and she repeated it to herself with growing determination, the beginnings of a boxer’s bounce in her step. “Okay, I can do that. Leave it to me.”

He nodded decisively to her, then turned to face the storm, his hand at the hilt of his blade. 

"Hey!”

He’d barely taken a step before Aeris called out after him.

“If you're sending us back alone, give me that materia!"

Cloud faced her. Aeris set her face with resolve and readied her argument against him. He was the best Shinra had, so if the situation seemed that serious to him, she should at least have some way to defend herself. She’d remind him of what he already knew, that she was more capable with magic than nearly anyone. None of it needed to be said. After only a moment’s hesitation, Cloud moved closer, prying materia out of his armlet.

"I'm granting you temporary authorization for the use of SOLDIER-grade materia." He placed two into her waiting hands. Fire - from the feel of it, nearly mastered - and Sylph. "Engage only as a last resort and surrender it at base." He looked away and seemed to wrestle with something through a pause while Aeris slotted both into her empty bangle. When he lifted his eyes again, they were filled with unusual sincerity as much as gravity. "... And I’m counting on you, Aeris. Keep the both of you safe."

It had clearly been hard for him to say and it took her aback to hear it. For as long as they’d known each other now, she’d never had his trust before, and she took it closely to heart.

“I will,” she promised.

“We’ll report this position when we’re back at the helicopter,” added Tifa. “Please take care, Cloud.”

“Alright. You too.”

With steel in his gaze and his sword at the ready, Cloud turned his back to the both of them and set out to hunt the monster in the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someday I may get on board with "Aerith" but I am simply not there yet, so you'll have to bear with me in the meanwhile.
> 
> Thank you everyone for the warm reception to Chapter 1, I really appreciated all of your comments.
> 
> Thank you to Nautilusopus, la_regina_scrive and tastygoldentaters for beta passes. Special thanks to Nautilusopus who definitely inspired the opening paragraphs with _Ice, Snow and the Rest_.
> 
> The title of this chapter references Jesca Hoop's "Born To."


	3. A Solemn Sword

The storm suited him. 

He had much admired the level stretch of tundra upon his first arrival. It was vast and unyielding and beautiful in its strangeness. Crossing it, he could feel the weight of the millennia that had carved out the rock and inlaid it with gifts from the Planet. Scholars and scavengers alike collected here to pick over fragments of his birthright. The history still held him, but after a week of camping in the silence of a cramped cave, Sephiroth reached a different conclusion about the landscape: He found the stillness disquieting.

By contrast, the tumult of the blizzard echoed him and spurred him onward. The wind pulled at his hair and the hem of his coat with fury and tenacity, a bellows for the fire burning at the centre of him. He lifted his face into it and relished the sting. It brought him alive - albeit not as much as Shinra blood on his blade. There would be more of it soon, soaking red into the snow, if the snare he was laying now caught the hart that hunted him.

At the top of the rocky outcropping, he crouched out of sight and away from the crosswind. His eyes turned sharp towards the whorl of white to the south. In truth, it wasn’t his sight that he was counting on. Familiar intuition prickled at the back of his mind. More and more often he felt it, like half-formed thoughts that would needle and gnaw him until he heeded them, but he knew the meaning of this one and needed no urging to listen. He let his eyes fall shut and leaned into it, let it sharpen to a point. It told him exactly what he needed to know. The so-called “Zero-SOLDIER” was near, and from the feel of it, rushing headlong into his ambush.

It had been nearly half a year since the two of them had last clashed in Wutai. From the moment he had set foot on the island, the baying lead of a pack of Shinra’s dogs sent to subdue him, Sephiroth had known - and not only because he had been so very eager to show off his newfound pedigree. He could sense him. Back then it had been like glimpsing a flickering candle on the horizon. Now it was a roaring beacon, impossible to miss. 

The signal seemed to grow with the strength of his rival and the endurance of their stalemate. Ending it hadn’t been part of the plan for his journey north, but Sephiroth had noticed him, and adaptability had been built early into the clockwork of his mind. Far from the ramparts of the city and out amidst the wild winds, he would have no chance to call for back-up or weaponry. Plucking the thorn from his side while he had the opportunity was the pragmatic decision. How satisfying it would be was only an added bonus.

With the faintest scrape of metal against rock, he readied Masamune and himself. He didn’t have long to wait. Minutes behind him, Cloud emerged from a curtain of white and stepped into lethal range.

Sephiroth sprung into action. He plunged from the height of the rock with Masamune’s point trained on Cloud’s centre, and knew in the middle of his thrust that it wouldn’t find its mark. Cloud had been travelling on-alert and turned in time to respond. The Buster Sword rose, its edge turning Sephiroth’s blade, even as the force of his blow pushed Cloud skidding backwards across the slippery rock. He regained his footing quickly, planting himself and the broadsword between them.

“You!” Cloud spat. 

Sephiroth did not leave him room to say much else. He threw out a plume of Fire and charged forward through the flame and the heat. Masamune bit into rock and metal rather than flesh as Cloud managed to turn the blade again. The feel of the flame and the sound of clashing steel quickened Sephiroth, sharpened him. After weeks of travelling, waiting, planning, coordinating, waiting, waiting, waiting, the rhythm of battle felt as soothing and familiar as a heartbeat. A glancing blow caught Cloud in the arm and splattered the first of his blood across the snow. Cloud struck back, more force than finesse. Too slow, too clumsy. Sephiroth pressed the advantage forward and—

The sky shattered. A blinding light, a sharp crack, and a bolt running up his blade. Searing pain coursed through his arm and he jumped back out of range, disengaging with gritted teeth. His fingers were a vice around the grip of his sword as the pain jumped and twitched along with the muscles in his arm, like crackling lightning that lasted well after the real thing had dissipated. He hid it well. Straightening to his full height, he pulled his face into a mask of calm. A cold smile curled on his mouth, one that wouldn’t betray the effort of his placidity.

“Cloud,” he said evenly. His head dipped faintly in the mock-courtesy of a greeting.

“Why the hell are _you_ here?” Cloud barked, rooted to the spot. “Still can’t get enough of murdering rookies who used to look up to you? Wanted to try it in the snow instead of the jungle?”

Sephiroth chuckled, mostly to buy more time for recovery, but also because it was amusing. Cloud _always_ took the bait. With such obnoxious sincerity, too, as though he didn’t know exactly who his masters were and what they had done to earn his wrath.

"I’m here because Shinra is here,” he answered patiently. “They’ve come seeking still more of the Planet's blood, and it’s my duty to see that they pay for it with their own."

"Always grandstanding." Cloud's shoulders shifted, his hands readjusting on the grip of his sword. "Talking like you're any bigger than some self-obsessed nutcase with a body count."

“Are you keeping that count? Add another two.”

Cloud roared as he rushed forward, raising the Buster sword to strike through another flurry of lightning. Sephiroth was ready for him; he jolted backwards, dancing just out of Cloud’s reach. The next strike he turned aside and followed with another blast of fire, forcing more distance between them. But Cloud moved quickly, too, and ferocity compounded his strength. The peal of clashing swords rang into the storm around them.

He baited Cloud into another slash that he evaded, sending him stumbling forward. Here was his opening - he thrust the point of the Masamune forward and caught his quarry in the side. Cloud staggered as he pulled the blade viciously free. Not enough. In the space of a second Sephiroth saw and measured the risk of a coup de grace and decided to take it. He paid for it almost immediately. The retaliating strike came faster than he anticipated and connected with his shoulder; it chewed through the metal of his pauldron and tore into his flesh nearly to bone. 

With a grunt of pain Sephiroth drew backward, and opposite him Cloud did the same. Blood ran hot down from the gash in his shoulder, the grip of his blade already slick with it when he switched it to his other hand. Opposite him, Cloud struggled to stand upright with his arm clutched across his stomach. Impulse told him to rush in, keep going, finish it, but he fought it back. The mission was too important to jeopardize. Now that Cloud could report on his whereabouts, he had limited time to carry it out. 

He turned and made for the cave mouth.

Cloud followed shortly, slowed by his injury but shouting threats and spitting blood all the same. He felt as much as heard the weight of the Buster Sword fall heavy at his heels. He concentrated on the materia he needed, let its magic flow into him and held it there, the energy eddying in his chest. With a little more distance he released it, powerful and precise. He ran as the Quake collapsed the cave's entrance, tumbling away from the last of the falling rock that would seal him in and Cloud out.

Alone in the dark, Sephiroth pressed his back against the cold stone and murmured curses and Cures under his ragged breath.

* * *

Apprehension sat in Aeris’ stomach like a peach pit. It settled there as soon as she and Tifa had set out alone, materia at the ready and a wary eye out for monsters lurking in the storm. She enjoyed a brief reprieve some time later, when they reached the helicopter with great effort but little incident and the wind abated enough for them to get airborne. Since then the worst of the weather had cleared, just in time to reveal the sun sinking on the horizon. It bled orange into the grim, clouded sky and the light caught Aeris’ eyes and stung them, compounding with the din of the helicopter’s blades drilling into her head. Tired. She was very tired. When they arrived there would be time to rest, but the thought of returning to the city was the main reason for the leaden feeling in her stomach in the first place.

“It’s really something, huh?” said Tifa in the seat next to her, craning her neck for a better view.

Neo-Midgar sat shimmering like a pearl on the sweeping vista, catching the dying sunlight as it gleamed off the expansive and lonely snowfields. Its white towers strove toward the sky, each of them as noble as any monument. The tallest among them stood at the centre: The new Shinra building, its peak nearly grazing the energy dome that allowed them to keep the climate of city controlled to something more hospitable. It wasn’t quite opaque, but still far more visible from their distance, skittering like a spill of viridian oil over rippling water. From their vantage point and in the breathtaking evening light, you could scarcely tell that the city was half scaffolding and drawing all of its power from an incomplete reactor.

Aeris looked away. By any objective measure, Neo-Midgar was a triumph, a feat of modern engineering and Shinra ingenuity that surpassed even its predecessor. To Aeris, it was all wrong. A spotless place destined for spotless people. A poor reproduction of the real thing. She missed the messy labyrinth, the liberating snarl of slum streets and alleyways that had once hid her back home. Maybe not quite hid. The truth was that there had always been men in dark suits lurking around every corner, but at least in the brackish gloom next to a burst mako pipe she had been able to escape the sensation of their constant scrutiny. In Neo-Midgar’s bright lights and open spaces, there were no places to hide.

Or maybe there were, but she had never been away from Shinra Tower unaccompanied for long enough to find any.

“Aeris?”

“Huh? Oh.” Tifa was studying her face, so Aeris pulled it into a friendly and obliging smile. “Sorry, I guess I’m still pretty tired.”

“Yeah, me too,” answered Tifa, rolling a strand of her dark hair thoughtfully between her fingertips. She held onto her thought for a few moments longer before speaking it. “Cloud’s probably on his way back now, right?”

“Yeah, of course. Who knows, maybe he’s even beaten us back! He’s _the_ Zero-SOLDIER and all.“ 

Tifa returned the smile, and it made Aeris feel that much less genuine by comparison. Cloud _would_ be fine, though. In the meantime, his old friend being worried about him wouldn’t help anything.

“I guess you’re right. It’s a little surprising, honestly, how effortless it all seems to be for him now...” It seemed that thought had a tail end as well, but whatever it was, Tifa never spoke it. Instead, she propped her chin up on her wrist and turned her face back to the window, watching the city grow closer.

“Maybe when he is back, we could all grab dinner together,” she continued after a moment, her voice brightening. “What do you think? I’m _starving_.”

Aeris stared at the back of her head in uncomfortable silence. When was the last time someone other than Tseng had given her any such invitation? Tifa clearly had no idea what she was saying. It wasn’t just that she didn’t know what being an Ancient meant - apparently, Cloud hadn’t explained anything to her at all.

“I’d really love to,” she answered quietly, “But I can’t.”

“Oh. Well, no worries. Maybe another time.”

As they grew nearer to the landing pad, Aeris picked out a figure standing straight and tall at its edge. A man, awaiting their arrival with his hands clasped behind his back. The crisp lines of his black suit stood in stark contrast to the curving white architecture of the city. Tseng was waiting for her. They watched each other through the windows and the spinning rotors as the helicopter touched down and the engine sputtered to a stop.

Aeris pulled off her hat and mittens, holding the latter in her teeth and unzipping her parka as she stepped out of the door. Only minutes under the dome and it was already far too hot for downy outerwear. Behind her, Tifa hauled out the spoils, consisting of the materia they had found and shards of mako-rich rock quartz from the surrounding area, arranged carefully in a case emblazoned with Shinra’s logo.

“Leave that,” Tseng ordered, before turning his attention to Aeris. “You’re unharmed?”

“M’fine,” she answered through a mouthful of mitten.

“Excuse me, sir?” Tifa stepped forward, also in the midst of unburdening herself of the winter-wear. “Have you heard from Cloud?”

“Ms. Lockhart, I presume.” Tseng gave her a look of polite appraisal, which Aeris knew to mean he had already decided she wasn’t worth his time and resented her privately for wasting it. “Normally I wouldn’t be at liberty to disclose that to you… but he requested that we keep you informed. He’s not yet made contact and we believe that he’s still surveying the area at present.”

“Oh,” Tifa frowned. “Okay. Thank you. Please, let me know if anything changes.”

Tseng nodded curtly. He offered no further pleasantries or assurances and instead turned to Aeris, who was insistently handing him her coat, her heavy knit sweater still inside. Tseng hesitated. He made a disdainful face and sighed quietly to himself, but took it from her nevertheless, folding it neatly over one of his arms. Aeris gave him a sunny grin. It was a small concession, but she made a point of always taking as much as she could get.

“Aeris! Are you— are you okay?”

It took her a moment to realize why Tifa was looking at her with such concern. Once she did, she snatched the coat back from Tseng and held it over her chest to conceal the tangle of wires snaking out from under her camisole. They attached at one end to electrodes placed from neck to navel and gathered at a little box at her waist. Standard monitoring equipment for expeditions, nothing unusual, not even painful like the procedures that had left a few odd bandages along her arms. Nevertheless, her cheeks burned. Until now she’d somehow been next to normal in Tifa’s eyes. How stupid of her to forget.

“It’s nothing,” she explained airily. “They’re just trying to figure out my, ah, sixth sense for finding mako deposits.”

“Oh,” said Tifa for the third time, sounding well and truly doubtful by now. She was still frowning at the electrodes at Aeris’ throat when Tseng stepped between them, his back to Tifa. Aeris caught his eyes as he looked down at her and noted the way his brow was knit above them.

“Come now,” he said, herding her onwards. “They’re waiting for you. You’ll need to be assessed before you can turn in for the night.”

“Right — See you later, Tifa.”

Together they made their way to the labs in silence. As it had always been, Aeris couldn’t be completely sure if Tseng had actually meant to protect her in the small way that he could. She would certainly never let him know that she was grateful for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Nautilusopus for betaing this chapter and la_regina_scrive for what was probably closer to alphaing.
> 
> Yes, that was a Vagrant Story reference. If it can be a Vagrant Story reference, safe bet that it is.
> 
> Title references Mirah's " _Promise_."


	4. Give and Take

Trial days were second best after expeditions. Like all lab days, they began at the crack of dawn with a battery of tests administered by sundry lab staff, all of them selected for their thoroughness and below-average levels of compassion. In no great rush, they administered a mysterious combination of blood tests, physical exams, basic imaging, and anything else that seemed like it could quantify her. Lately they'd started performing basic psych evals and “mental wellness checks,” though Aeris couldn't work out why. They demonstrated uncharacteristic concern for her person rather than only her body.

Unlike other lab days, they rarely involved stimulants and never involved sedatives, which were worse. She hated losing time. Interview and observational days were usually fully-lucid as well, but always either dreadfully boring or far too emotional. Between the panels of doctors and residents that participated from behind glass, the exam tables where her feet didn’t quite reach the ground, and the overbearing sense of being watched as they demanded she articulate her innermost workings, it all reminded her too much of being a little kid again. 

By contrast, only a handful of doctors were involved in administering trials. Plus, outside of baseline measurements, they never did sample collection on trial days. They wanted to keep her energy up to maximize output. For similar reasons, they gave her half-hour breaks at regular intervals. Sometimes she’d catch Tseng out for a smoke and have someone to talk to for a while, or tease if the conversation got too boring, or wheedle gil out of so she could visit the vending machine. Lunch was usually better, too. The little things.

Today’s schedule didn’t even involve combat, which was also good. In spite of sleep like the dead, Aeris was still tired and bruised from the day before. A/B testing weapons-class materia inevitably wound up as a lengthy affair, pitting her against promising SOLDIERs to assess relative magical output. It was petty and stupid, but she’d hate to break her winning streak against them because of fatigue. She had lost just once before, during a monster trial, which was why they had stopped doing monster trials. Recovery took a full week and from what Tseng told her, the Professor had still been intent on pitting her against a captive Behemoth. Thankfully, the president intervened on behalf of his favourite asset.

They were still in one the rooms designated for combat training, wide and long and mostly made of reinforced metal, but the lab aides were out in the open today rather than shut away behind bulletproof glass. They had lugged the necessary equipment into the middle of the room, just next to a row of folding plastic tables piled high with vegetation. There were office ferns, little birch saplings, potted potatoes from the outskirts farm and cherry tomatoes from its greenhouses; there were red poppies, purple hyacinths and pink anemones that must all be destined for the Tower’s garden. Aeris couldn’t wait to get her hands on them later. She squirmed in her seat as they checked the electrode connections, wondering where they’d plant them and where she’d replant them once she dug them up later herself.

“More Growth materia today, huh?” she genially asked one of the assistants, who as usual looked deeply uncomfortable at being spoken to.

“Please concentrate,” he mumbled. Aeris gave up and took it in stride.

The scientist in lead of the experiment was busily setting up Aeris’ competitor in the chair opposite her. In a small glass tank, wired up to their strange machines, were three linked materia in an unusual shade of teal. Unlike naturally occurring materia, these didn’t look solid all the way through - the insides seemed to swim, and swimming among them were bubbles of red like oil in water. Her blood, she realized. They were still working on the best way to incorporate her cells, and lately it seemed like solid matter was the way to go. The highest performing prototype contained one of her baby teeth. They’d kept the ones that had fallen out and then harvested the rest, hoping for cells that would let them lab-grow pieces of her.

She tried not to reminisce.

“Time-lapse cameras are ready. Rolling.” Another aide called.

“Commencing comparison trials of specimen C-003 and materia GC-039,” answered the lead scientist. She lifted her eyes from the clipboard cradled in the crook of her arms and gestured to the aide, who flipped a switch at his station. The panel hummed to life and and the materia machine alongside it. The head doctor looked at Aeris. “C-003, begin.”

Aeris nodded and “began.”

She was never quite sure what it was she was supposed to do during Growth trials. The point was to compare the materia’s performance during machine-aided autonomous casting against her… presence, she supposed. Telling the truth - that so much of being a Cetra didn’t really involve any _doing_ \- only made people angry. She knew the data corroborated her, because half of the time that made them angry, too. The best thing to do in these situations was to shut her eyes and clasp her hands and look very focused while thinking about whether the poppies would be best next to the hollyhocks or the geraniums. 

The familiar click and swish of the door unlocking and opening interrupted her thoughts, and just as she was settling on where to put the anemones. Shuffling footsteps approached her from behind. Unfortunately, she recognized them. She opened her eyes and turned to see Professor Hojo, looking even more sour than usual. He wasn’t supposed to be here, which was the other good thing about trial days. Usually he deemed them too unimportant for his presence.

“Not one of you had the good sense to man the intercom, hm?”

“Professor Hojo, sir!” The woman leading the experiment gestured to shut the machines and cameras off, standing a little straighter and stiffer in front of her superior. “W-what seems to be the trouble?”

“The specimen is needed elsewhere,” he replied, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You’ll have to continue tottering about with flora some other time. You, come.”

He issued the order without bothering to look at Aeris, much less address her directly. With a sinking feeling she got to her feet as two aides rushed over to detach the electrodes connected at her wrists and temples. They finished quickly; the Professor was not a patient man. As she followed him out of the room, she looked back over her shoulder one last time and bid farewell to an easy day full of flowers and daydreaming.

Hojo didn’t speak as he led her down the hall. In addition to his obvious agitation, he was moving more quickly than usual - normally he was in no great rush about anything at all, a facet of his personality most painfully visible on sample collection days. Come to think of it, shepherding specimens to and fro was also most certainly beneath him. She considered asking what was going on, then thought better of it. Not only would she get no answers, but she’d be subjecting herself to the indignity of _speaking_ to the _Professor_. She let out the anxious energy by twisting her hands together behind her back as he brought her to one of the smaller lab rooms and swiped his keycard at the door.

“Sit,” he ordered, gesturing to the reclining medical chair. There were two in the room, and the second was occupied. Cloud opened his eyes with a groan as Hojo came to stand at the foot of it, flipping through his chart. Plugged into one of his arms was an IV connected to a bag of blood, which made sense given the gaping wound on his abdomen. Aeris’ hand went involuntarily to her mouth. Even with the SOLDIER healing that had stopped the bleeding and scabbed most of it over, it looked like he’d been run completely through. Just the sight made her queasy. She tore her eyes away and settled herself hastily in the chair.

Hojo waved vaguely at the nurse who was preparing to dress Cloud’s wounds and he bustled to Aeris’ side instead. An empty blood bag awaited her and she stretched out her arm and turned the inside of it upwards instinctively, without even noticing it. Normally she needed a steadying breath before the familiar pinch of the needle, but this time she was preoccupied with something other than anxiety. She was watching Cloud, a stitch in her brow. She knew he’d received other transfusions from her, both for injuries and for the experiments, but none she’d actually been present for. Seeing him - or anyone - in this state was new. And alarming. She thought of Tifa and wondered if she had heard yet, how she was doing. 

As she stared, Cloud’s head rolled toward her against the backrest. When his eyes met hers, they burned with such deep resentment that she was forced to look away. Her face went hot. After yesterday, she really believed he might be coming around. Was that naive of her? It was so much harder to know that he wasn’t like this with everyone, that years worth of the cold shoulder from one of the few frequent faces in her stupid routine wasn’t just because Cloud was a jerk. He was never her friend, so it felt even more stupid and embarrassing to get upset about it, but what had she done to him to deserve it?

“Quiet,” snapped Hojo, just as Aeris was opening her mouth to try and improve the situation by saying something helpful or supportive. She glared at him, but kept silent. He turned Cloud’s chart over with a flourish and produced a pen from his breast pocket.

“Now then, Strife, do enlighten us: What reckless, foolhardy and thoroughly unnecessary danger did you cast yourself upon this time?”

“Gee, Doc,” Cloud droned, “Y’think I shouldn’t have hugged that Tonberry?” His voice may have been weaker than usual, but the acid in his tone was not.

“I put nothing past you anymore,” clipped Hojo, unphased, “But if you are well enough to _quip_ , you are well enough to provide _details_. I understand you’ve already been perfectly forthcoming with Tseng.”

“Yeah,” Cloud muttered, “‘Cause the President’s visit is gonna be an issue.”

“Pray tell,” Hojo replied. He fixed Cloud with a look from over the top of his spectacles, which Cloud stubbornly avoided meeting. Tension and silence expanded to fill the room. Aeris shrunk in her seat. By now she knew full well when she had found herself the presence of a conversation she wasn’t really meant to be privy to. It was never a good time to be noticed - particularly not if you wanted to eavesdrop.

When Cloud finally spoke, he spat every word, eyes fixed bitterly on the tile floor as he did.

“Sephiroth’s appeared in the area.”

* * *

The lantern’s fire was out, but the scent of kerosene still lingered. 

So too did the itch of the thought that had plagued Sephiroth through the night, and since he had arrived in the north. Fitful sleep was nothing unusual for him. Oblivion was among the rewards of a target silenced or a mission completed, and in between his dreams were constant companions, spread out into a mandala of repeating patterns. The fire, the void, the ache of hearing what he was certain was his mother’s voice. She sang him tuneless lullabies and he imagined that he could make out the words. Sometimes he could. Too rarely. 

The latest pattern was different, save for its inscrutability. He considered it as he palmed his Cure materia and drew the spell into himself again. The magic was taking. He rolled his shoulder to assess how much. The muscle hadn’t finished regrowing and the pain was another thing that lingered, but he had patched himself up through worse, and often enough to become surprisingly good at it. It subsided into vague irritation, partly in sensation and partly at the miscalculation that had caused him to incur the injury in the first place, and left more room for him to consider the insistent inkling at the back of his mind.

It felt like examining and re-examining a thought he could no longer remember, maddening in its ambiguity. Something in the city. Something hazy. Cloud’s presence might account for it, but after their encounter, he doubted it. Cloud felt clear. This sense was still floating formless, anchored to nothing. Some other little light in the darkness.

More maddening than the feeling itself was how accustomed he had become to the vexation of not understanding. That there was a segment of his mind that seemed beyond his knowing, tapped into something greater, had ceased to disturb him once he discovered what he was. The trouble was that he had little more understanding of his Cetran instinct now than the day he had learned the truth. He shook his head and rose to his feet. As always, he set aside both frustration and curiosity. As always, his focus was needed elsewhere if his noble work was to be done.

From the mouth of the cave, Sephiroth looked out to the towering half-city of Neo-Midgar. A blight on the otherwise peaceable landscape. A hideous and hubristic ghost town erected in foolish defiance of the encroaching frost. His destination. The construction of their elite enclave, a new city to turn to when all else fell to ruin, had begun not so long after he had ardently committed himself to Shinra’s destruction. Likely his impact was part of why it now stood here at all, which only stoked his enmity further. As much as he cut away, still they spread like wood rot.

He attended quickly to the meager contents of his camp - rations, a sleeping bag, the storm lantern, maintenance equipment - and packed them away or stowed them out of sight. What couldn’t be carried would be left behind. He kicked fresh snow over the fire pit. In it lay the charred remains of the red and ruined bandages, made makeshift from torn strips of extra clothing. The time had come to move, regardless of his less than desirable condition. He set his materia, steeled himself, and ventured into the waste.

Months of planning and resistance intelligence had brought him to this point. He’d harboured doubts initially, but with Wutai liberated in all but name, he knew he couldn’t stay there any longer. Together with the rebellion, he had pushed the nation’s borders back to the sea, every inch of independence won with Shinra blood. They sent fewer and fewer troops to recapture their erstwhile colony, and Sephiroth spent more and more time restless and rudderless amongst people celebrating a victory that for him could never feel anything but hollow. 

He sat twisting his hands together when an acquaintance approached him, an ordinary man with uncommon ambition and the head of a group called Avalanche. They'd wanted assistance with their latest project and had been wise enough to come to Sephiroth to put it into action. Of course they would need him if their plan for Old Midgar’s reactors was to be successful, and he had done more than agree to help: He had taken inspiration from them.

He'd told them he could do them one better.

Just after nightfall, he arrived at the edge of the city. The crossing took the whole of the day due to prudence as much as distance. He picked scouting aerial patrols out against the sky and took cover until they passed, resisting the impulse to see how far his Fire could cast. There seemed to be more than usual, but not by enough to worry him. Security was still thin in the city, with no one around yet to secure it from. This was doubly true for the miles-long stretches of nothing but scaffolding, where he now found himself.

He stopped short of the city’s barrier, an easily-missed shimmer in the air before him. Craning his head upward, he glared at the new Shinra building standing stately just beyond it. The distortion from the field made it waver like a mirage. Fitting enough. Their latest information confirmed that all of the billions of gil that had been reaped from the populace had been poured into completing their precious Tower in its entirety first. Even the reactors were still in development. The security features of the barrier dome had been cut from the first-phase build entirely. Sephiroth couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he passed through it unimpeded.

With only a day remaining, he set out to the tower to remove the heart of the rot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, did you know that baby teeth contain stem cells? This fic is now educational.
> 
> Thanks to Nautilusopus and la_regina_scrive for beta reading.


	5. The Catch

“Aeris. A moment, please,” Tseng called from outside the door. Within her living quarters, Aeris looked up at it warily. Tseng was using his professional voice: Clear and polished, like a window in a corporate atrium that killed all the birds that flew into it. It caused her a moment of hesitation before she crossed the room and opened the door to find him standing straight and poised, his hands clasped together behind his back. As she had expected. Business Tseng. She frowned and shut the door behind her as she stepped out into the hall.

Aeris did not like Business Tseng. Unlike regular Tseng, he did not smuggle her into the executive lounge for after-hours drinks or crack into stifled laughter that he would later deny when she told just the right off-colour joke. Business Tseng did not laugh. Business Tseng appeared around corners, or at her house in the dead of night, and forced her into the back of sleek black sedans to steal away another six months of her life. Business Tseng ignored her screaming as one of his men shot down bystanders to keep her from running. Business Tseng ignored a lot of things.

“How’s Cloud?” Aeris asked, her arms folding in front of her into more protective posture. A little small talk would prolong whatever inevitably bad news he was bringing to her doorstep, and she had been a bit worried about Cloud despite herself. She hadn’t seen him since the nurse shoved a bottle of juice in her hand and shooed her out the door, back into the care of the materia R&D team. They didn't want her there once she was finished with her “donation,” and between his cold demeanour and Hojo's general presence, she hadn't much wanted to stick around anyway.

“He’s back on his feet,” replied Tseng. “Professor Hojo has been attending his recovery. He’ll be able to fulfill his duties as part of the President’s detail tomorrow.”

Aeris nodded along. Good. That was good. She’d let good news hang between them for just a few moments more.

“Returning to the matter at hand,” Tseng continued with a sweep of his hand through the air, “There’s been a change of plans. You’ll be returning to Midgar tomorrow in the President’s airship, once he completes his inspection.”

Her frown deepened. This was not the kind of news she expected to hear from Business Tseng, because as far as she could figure, it was still good. She’d been counting down the days until they sent her home to Midgar. Sure, they had her scheduled for another month or so in the labs and they’d probably hold her to it, but if she was good she’d still be able to go for walks and maybe even see Mom, provided she could get topside. She’d miss the gardens, of course, but she’d be home to tend her own soon enough.

“Okay, that’s... fine. What’s the problem?” She avoided the word _catch_. 

“I believe you already know that Sephiroth was sighted in the area.” Tseng’s posture stiffened here, and she guessed it was because she _did_ already know. Historically, he wasn’t a fan of the amount of information she so happened to overhear. Cloud was probably in for an earful. “We’ve elected to relocate you because we have reason to believe that should Sephiroth discover your presence here, your safety could be at risk.”

Aeris nodded again. That seemed obvious. Even if she hadn’t seen the condition Cloud was in, it was quite difficult to miss that Sephiroth was dangerous. All you had to do was glance at a television or a newspaper from any point in the past five years. Shinra reporting required a boulder of salt, but the footage of the turmoil in Wutai spoke for itself. _Everyone’s_ safety could be at risk. She supposed there _was_ only one of her, but sensed that Tseng was still dancing around something.

“Okay… But?”

Tseng paused and lowered his eyes for a moment, in just the sort of way that made Aeris brace for impact.

“Understand that research is going unprecedentedly well, and it’s reaching a critical stage in the Neo-Midgar project.” Tseng stayed cool and measured and looked Aeris directly in the face as an expression of dawning horror spread over it. “Particularly to do with improving liveability conditions and continuing to evolve—”

“You’re not letting me out next month,” she blurted out.

“... No.”

“When, then?" she demanded. "When can I go home?”

Tseng said nothing. At her sides, Aeris’ hands balled into fists so hard that her nails bit sharply into the flesh of her palms. The pain stung, but not as bad as being unable to hit him with them.

“Tseng!” she was shouting, though she knew she shouldn’t be, that shouting could be dangerous. “You said six months! You told me that if I just _cooperated_ then—”

“Things change, Aeris.” Tseng’s voice was quiet, and underlying it was icy confirmation that shouting _was_ dangerous. “You should have known it wasn’t for certain.”

“ _You_ swore it to me!” she shouted louder.

“Calm down, Aeris.”

“You — You… This is my _life_ , Tseng!”

“You're so stubborn,” Tseng finally snapped. “What is it that you’re so eager to get back to doing, hm? Skipping around the slums and picking the petals off daisies? You are safe _here_. We value you _here_. You’re contributing to important work _here_. There's no one else in the world who can do this, Aeris. No one. I know that there are sacrifices to be made, but you seem to have no idea how many people you're helping. You are being called upon because you are _needed_ , why can't you understand that?”

She wanted to say something, to fight back, to do more than stare at him in silent fury, but all her effort was spent on blinking back tears. She could feel her shoulders shaking. It would have been better if he had just slapped her to shut her up, as he’d done in the past. At least that would have been an act of Business Tseng - not regular Tseng, who called her by name and sighed to himself and fished his pewter filigreed cigarette case out of his pocket. He shook his head as he popped it open and cast her a final admonishing look. As if he had the right.

“I’ll let you return to your evening.”

As hard as she could, she slammed the door behind her. On the inside of it, she slid down to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees, waiting until the sound of his footsteps down the hallway died away before she allowed herself to cry.

* * *

Sephiroth smiled. The gurgling amused him. The officer clawed desperately at his throat, fingers slick with his own blood - a feeble attempt to remove the length of steel run through it. Sephiroth decided to oblige him and pulled the sword free, red spurting and pooling across the floor instead. The officer’s kicking feet curled upward to his stomach when Sephiroth’s boot connected sharply with his ribs and forced him over onto his back. He stared with unfixed eyes at the ceiling of the guard shelter as Sephiroth brought the Masamune’s point down and through his heart. The gurgling stopped. Sephiroth smiled still.

He pulled his sword free and wiped blood from the blade on a yet-clean part of the man’s uniform jacket. With another heavy kick, he rolled his body toward the wall and onto its side, then bent down to collect the keycard clipped to his belt loop. Upon inspecting it, it struck him that the dead man’s name seemed familiar. Perhaps they’d worked together, somewhere in a past that felt so distant it hardly seemed to belong to him at all. All that mattered now was his clearance, which so far as Sephiroth could tell, would get him as far as he needed to go.

Outside of the officer in his cramped little shelter, there didn’t seem to be any guardsmen in this area of the city. There wasn’t much city here to guard. From the rows tilled into the ground, it seemed that he was crossing a fledgling field, though nothing in it had started to sprout. More interesting were the trees placed at even intervals throughout. Young birches, each of them with some strange contraption nestled in their boughs. He passed by six or seven of them before curiosity got the better of him, and stopped at the eighth to investigate further.

The device resembled one of Hojo’s specimen tanks, but in miniature. Too small to contain monsters or political prisoners or vagrants or whatever they had been mutated into - this one held materia. He didn’t recognize it as such right away, because it looked like no materia he had ever seen, from the colour to the consistency. Materia weren’t supposed to have any degree of viscosity, but this one did. It swirled and glowed softly, as though it was in use. That must be the purpose of the tank, connected as it was to wire that wound its way around the tree trunk. The only label he could find read _[GC-034]_ , which told him nothing. Perhaps a closer look would be enlightening.

He shattered the casting machine with the edge of the Masamune and cleared away enough of the glass to pluck the materia out. Up close, he noticed the deep teal was flecked with red. Turning it over in his hands, he decided there was definitely something strange about it. It _felt_ strange, the way that something in Neo-Midgar _felt_ strange. That other light flickered in his mind's eye. It made for a tantalizing clue, but did nothing to remedy that he had no idea what this materia was meant to do. That was also unusual - he had always been quite talented with materia, and had never met one quite as unforthcoming.

Eventually, he figured it out. They were nestled in the trees because they were _for_ the trees. He held it out in his hand and channelled his energy into it, watching as a skinny branch with shuddering round leaves stretched out toward it. Stretched or grew? Given the field, he guessed the latter. It didn’t seem to be performing well at its job, but that was the most sensible reason for its presence. That left only one more question: Where had such a materia come from? He’d never seen anything like it before. 

_GC-034_ , the tank had said. Checking against an intact tank produced the same number. He’d have to remember it. Sephiroth pocketed the Growth materia alongside the keycard and continued on. If he could find a terminal with any access to the internal network, he’d be able to confirm his suspicions. Depending on what he found, he might even have his next mission already cut out for him. 

That would be for the best. Nothing left him so fretful as idle hands.

* * *

Aeris closed her hands around the little mound of dirt and pressed them gently into the soft earth. That was the last of the hyacinths. As she straightened her back, she gazed admiringly over all of the purple half-blooms nestled amidst the thyme. It wasn’t the obvious choice, but she was more than pleased with the results. She dusted her hands and picked the dirt out from under her fingernails, then hiked up her skirt, crept carefully back to the ledge, and hopped down onto the tile stone path.

It was a stroke of luck that they’d left all the plants from that morning on carts out in the hall, where her permissions-tailored access card allowed her to reach. It hung from around her neck on a multi-coloured lanyard with white lettering proclaiming the Shinra Electric Power Company’s commitment to supporting all of their employees, which had been the only option for a lanyard that wasn’t black. The cart now stood opposite of where she did, piled with poppies and anemones still waiting for a home. 

She pressed the heels of her palms to her puffy eyes and drew a steadying breath. Home.

Gardening helped, at least a little. It was an unusual idea to include a botanical garden in an office, but it certainly worked to cultivate a sense of luxury and plenty, two concepts that had been near the top of the brief for Neo-Shinra Tower. The architects and horticulturalists had done a wonderful job with it. High ceilings and snaking paths combined with multi-tiered planters and tall fronded ferns to segment the space. The room felt so much larger and grander than it actually was - and it certainly wasn’t small to begin with. The maintenance crew hadn’t been as certain how to actually care for its dazzling array of herbs, plants, flowers, and succulents, but that worked out well for Aeris. As far as she knew, they appreciated their midnight gardener.

They’d have to work out how to manage without her.

With a heavy, sinking sigh, she reached back to the ribbon at the top of her braid and fiddled with the knot. Her hands came away cradling her mother’s materia. The light in the gardens was always dim and mellow, but the materia seemed to catch it anyway and it glimmered in her hands like a pearl. She held it between them as she clasped her fingers together and lifted them so her knuckles grazed her lips.

_Can you hear me?_ She thought it in the resonant way she thought things when she wanted them heard and answered, her eyes closed tight and her head turned in toward her chest. _I miss you, mother. I miss you. I miss you._ The only answer was a tremor in her chest. She was alone here. In that sense, at least, it made no difference where she was. 

For all her practice making the best of it, she wished she could find a better silver lining.

* * *

Awash in the blue glow of the monitor’s light, Sephiroth froze. His hands hovered above the keyboard, his eyes glued to the same three words that had stopped him in his tracks, suddenly aware of the pulse of his heart and the blood burning in his veins.

_The Cetran Specimen  
_

Much as he had expected, his search for information relating to _GC-034_ had turned up evidence that Shinra was now manufacturing materia from whole-cloth. Their desire for such technology was an open secret - liberating themselves from the shackles of what the Planet would produce would certainly bring them to greater power. What Sephiroth hadn’t understood was how they had finally managed to develop a functional version of the technology. The answer was what blindsided him.

_The Cetran Specimen [C-003]_

It couldn’t be right. It was impossible. He was the last, resurrected from extinction. The power and purpose of the Cetra were his sole and lonely inheritance. But it certainly wasn’t him they referred to in their lab reports; the archives he'd read were seared so sharply into his mind that he knew for a fact that wasn’t his specimen number.

Hurriedly he plugged the number into another search and was answered with pages of pages of results. A quick scan revealed the subject’s involvement in all manner of keystone technologies, related to the construction of Neo-Midgar, the further development of SOLDIER, and still more that had been abandoned or not yet come to fruition. He felt lightheaded. The records stretched back for years, but they did nothing to answer the question blazing in his mind.

It was Turk arrest and custody records that eventually bore fruit. C-003 turned up in years worth of Tseng’s diligent book-keeping. Admittance. Escape. Admittance. Early release. Admittance. Admittance. Admittance. The latest record was filed nearly six months ago, and amended earlier that day. His head was thrumming. He hesitated, then opened it.

A picture of a young woman stared out at him, her tired green eyes piercing him to his core.

The other little light.

He leaned in closer across the terminal desk, fingers pressed to his brow. The reports offered only high-level information, but he drank in every line. Aeris Gainsborough. 22. Half-Cetra. Verified by the science department, the weapons department, public security. Verified over and over again. Custody records stretching back further than Tseng’s tenure. Back through her entire life. Back through much of his, as well, often in the same places at the same time. Admitted in Midgar six months ago and transferred to Neo-Midgar. She was here. She was real and she was _here_.

He’d never known. One more thing he’d never known.

He sunk his head into his hands in disbelief and let out a slow breath. When he lifted it again, the truth had gone nowhere. It stared back at him in the form of this girl, a familiar stranger. Another of Shinra’s victims. Another chosen by the Planet.

According to the file, she was quartered in the Science department, on the executive levels. The mission would take him there anyway.

Aeris. Her name was Aeris. Sephiroth committed it to memory as he commenced his final ascent of the Tower with new purpose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features Gardening Inaccuracies as most of the flowers mentioned don't bloom at the same time, but they were chosen for their meanings:
> 
> **Purple Hyacinth** \- Sorrow, spring rebirth  
>  **Pink Anemone** \- Forsaken, death, spring rebirth  
>  **Poppy** \- Dreams, rest, peace, death  
>  **Thyme** \- Courage, strength  
>  **Fern** \- Magic, shelter, fascination  
>  **Birch** \- New beginnings, restoration, hope
> 
> Anyway, as the flowers are suggesting, our lovely and clearly well-adjusted protagonists will finally meet next chapter!
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive for proofreading.


	6. Eyes Like Mine

“Aeris Gainsborough?”

Her head snapped up. 

With nothing left to plant, Aeris sat on one of the garden ledges, running her thumb across the cool, smooth surface of the white materia. She had given up willing herself to drag her tired body to bed for a few hours of rest before the morning came. Once she did, the internal argument had been replaced with stillness. Her aimless reverie followed no thoughts, only feelings that seemed to wind around and around her like the silk of a spider’s web, binding her in place. 

The unfamiliar voice broke her daze. She squinted into the darkness of the garden’s entrance and made out the shadow of a man in the doorway. Fern fronds broke up his distant figure, but even from across the room she could make out the pinprick glow of mako eyes, fixed upon her through the gloom. It reminded her viscerally of a panther prowling in the jungle, like she'd seen in a movie somewhere. Good for the shock and awe effect of the SOLDIERs who bore them, but not so much for midnight gardeners whose nerves were already shot.

“Who’s there?” she called. Her fingers closed a little tighter around the materia for comfort. The tiny spark it shot through her system in response provided just the opposite. With a start, she stared at the cerulean through the gaps in her fingers. It had never, never done that before - it had never done _anything_ before. What was going on?

“Are you the Cetran?” the man responded. 

The guarded hope in his low voice did nothing to assuage her heart drumming against her ribs or her mind racing to its rising pace. Aeris was very familiar with that question. This was hardly the first time she had heard it from a man waiting cloaked in shadow, just out of sight. Invariably, those who asked already knew the answer, and they asked it in prelude to doing whatever it was they had wanted to do with her in the first place. 

Somewhere in the haze of trepidation, she found a fortifying thread of fury at the constant indignation and held fast to it. Planting her feet, she rose to them.

“What do you _want_ _?_ ” she demanded.

The mako eyes lowered. The man in the doorway dipped his head in a moment of consideration and spoke when he’d lifted it again.

“Only to meet you,” was his response. 

She had to admit, she hadn’t heard that one before.

“Well it’s not going to happen with you just lurking there. Who are you, even?” 

In the doorway, Sephiroth hesitated. He knew full well that it came across as threatening to loom in the darkness, blocking the only exit no less. What he also knew, that Aeris would discover in only a moment’s time, was that it might very well be worse for her to see who she was talking to. Regardless, he knew he would have to oblige her. With careful attention to the space between them, he moved slowly out of the doorway and toward the flood of lantern-light further up the garden path.

He stopped abruptly as soon as her hand flew to her mouth with a sharp gasp.

“Stay calm,” he said, raising an open hand. “I mean you no harm.”

The thread of fury Aeris was holding onto snapped with a sharp twang. Her heart leapt into her throat, its thumping echoing in her ears above all else. She thought of the balcony through the double doors behind her and the precipitous drop to where the concrete of the next story might catch her. She looked at the glistening razor edge of the longsword he carried in his left hand and imagined it tearing into Cloud’s abdomen. She weighed her odds. His words registered later, and they too were familiar. A lot of people seemed to mean her no harm. As odds went, the intention rarely amounted to anything. 

In her grip, the materia pulsed again, a feeling that overtook the adrenaline buzzing through her body and commanded her attention. She focused on it to calm herself, and turned the materia in her shaking hand to maintain the focus. When she regained a measure of composure, she tore her eyes away from the sword and looked defiant into Sephiroth’s face, which itself contained nothing in particular to defy. He stood unmoving before her, still and staring. Had she been quick to collect herself or had he been waiting? 

“No harm, huh? Mind putting down the gigantic sword, then?”

At this, Sephiroth allowed himself a frown. In fact, he did mind putting down the “gigantic sword.” It was hardly as though he’d be defenceless without it, particularly against a quavering would-be opponent whose only available weapon was a garden trowel, but the grip and the weight of the Masamune in his hand made him feel whole. It made even circumstances like this easier, somehow. With a very private sigh, he made his peace with parting with it for the time being. It would be far worse for all his careful planning if she panicked and alerted someone to his presence.

Slowly, he turned the point of the blade away from her, balancing its length in both gloved hands as he knelt to the ground to lay it there gently. When he straightened again, he stepped away from it, the heels of his boots knocking against one of the ledge walls. His fingers curled and uncurled around the empty air at his sides. It was ridiculous, hesitating so deeply to put a few feet of distance between himself and his sword. Worse still was how naked he felt without it.

Aeris watched him warily all the while. The deadly length of steel drew a hard line between them. Having it there felt safer, and not only because it wasn’t in his hands. She imagined that somehow, he wouldn’t be able to cross over it, the way that faeries couldn’t touch iron and monsters couldn’t get you if you tucked all your limbs under the blanket and pulled it over your head. It was ridiculous, and he was certainly not bound by esoteric boogeyman rules, but she welcomed anything that ebbed away fear and ushered in the flow of clarity and courage. Her heart might crack her ribs if it hammered any harder.

“May we speak?” Sephiroth asked, once she seemed satisfied.

“Maybe.” Her tone was much lighter than she felt, even with distrust bubbling out from under it. “What happens if you don’t like what I’ve got to say?”

He had no answer for that. Normally if someone had spotted him in the final phase of such an important mission, he’d kill them to assure their silence and move on. Normally, there’d be no time or cause for words. Nothing about this situation was normal. It was unlike him to take such a risk to the success of mission in the first place, let alone to do so while too preoccupied for contingency planning. Perhaps that was why he’d wanted to keep hold of the Masamune - even without the desire to use it, it provided a degree of certainty and familiarity that was otherwise sorely absent from the present moment.

“I don’t know,” he settled on the honest answer. Though uncomfortable to deliver, it seemed best.

Aeris’ eyes burned with judgment as she considered him. She folded her hands together, clutching something between them, and relented.

“What do you want from me?”

“I found your records,” Sephiroth explained, both of his hands still curled tightly at his sides. “You’re half Cetran. One of the rightful heirs to this Planet.”

To his surprise, she interrupted with strained laughter and shook her head.

“Whatever it is you want to use me for, I swear that I can’t help you. I can’t do half of the things that they want me to do. They just take pieces of me until they have what they need, so you’re better off heading to the labs and stealing their samples and research drives. I barely know the first thing about being an ‘heir to the Planet.’” She spat the words as each syllable ran bitter over her tongue. 

Sephiroth had not known quite what he was looking for when he had resolved to seek out Aeris. More information had been part of it, though he only realized that as soon as she took the possibility off the table. It didn't disappoint him to see it go. She might not be able to tell him any more of what it meant to be Cetran, but he recognized the frustration and hurt and bitterness in her voice and it pierced through him to the unspoken heart of what he had been searching for. 

“In that way, we are the same.” The introduction he’d been waiting to deliver now tumbled from his mouth. "My mother was of Cetran blood. Until tonight I thought I was the sole survivor of the Ancients. Until… you."

“Wh… what?”

The words hit her like ice water. They swept away fear and caution and courage. They gripped her thundering heart and held it still for a beat. She groped for the ledge behind her with her empty hand, just to have a piece of the world to hold onto while it rearranged itself.

"That's not…” She shook her head, started over. “But how is that possible? I thought I was the last… Mom, everyone, told me that I…"

"I didn't know it myself for most of my life. Shinra kept it hidden from me. As they've kept you hidden away from the world, I suspect. The truth was just under our noses."

She had seated herself on the ledge again without even realizing it. Overwhelming - it was overwhelming. She pressed her knuckles to her brow and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to gather her focus for long enough to turn it inward. With a few deep breaths, her hands slipped back into the ocean. She had meant to feel for the usual ripples and wakes and instead found a wave breaking against her arms, strong enough that it threatened to pull her under. When her eyes fluttered back open, the white materia was once again humming in her grip.

For the first time, she lifted her head to really look over the man standing before her. Sephiroth looked different from the photographs they used on the news, backgrounded by footage of fire and insurrection. He was taller and broader in person, but gaunter in the face at the same time. The picture the papers favoured showed him with an arrogant smirk tugging sharp at his lips, a marked difference from the tight-lipped pensivity that couldn’t quite restrain the hopeful fascination in his expression. The dim light of the room magnified the dark circles ringing his eyes and sharpened their unnatural luminosity. Those, too, were different - greener. Like hers.

She believed him.

"I just… I need a minute."

Sephiroth gave a slight nod and sank down onto the ledge behind him as well. While Aeris weighed him against her expectation, he did much the same. She was a slight woman and clearly fraught, but looked healthier than he had expected to find any long-term patient of Shinra’s science department. More vivacious, as well, though that might have been an impression exaggerated by all the pink. Beyond that, he found her surprisingly unremarkable. Pretty, perhaps, but common. Nothing about her suggested the burden of an ancient legacy. Maybe her eyes, vibrant and rare as a lush garden in the arctic. She turned them on him again once she had collected herself.

"Are there others?" 

“No,” Sephiroth shook his head. “I meant to ask you the same.”

"I thought… there was no one else like me out there."

"So did I."

A little light and a cresting wave resonated together in the long moment of silence that stretched out between them.

"They're keeping you here.” Sephiroth broke the silence from behind his fingers, folded together contemplatively in front of his mouth. 

“… Yes.” Aeris looked away as she replied. She couldn’t explain why it was so uncomfortable to admit something so painfully obvious, but there it was.

“Come with me.”

“Huh?”

The steeple of Sephiroth’s fingers parted as he straightened, his thoughtful posture replaced with decisiveness. 

“I haven’t much time. I can take you with me. Away from here.”

“I…” In looking away, Aeris’ eyes had fallen again on the blade sitting between them. She believed what he had told her about himself, yes, but she believed a great many other things about him, too. And besides, what would happen if she escaped? Where would she even go? Wouldn’t Tseng just come looking for her, the way he always did? Playing along entitled her to outings and gardening and her own clothes. By contrast, open rebellion meant watching her mother die in the streets.

With the smallest shrug of her shoulders, Aeris smiled. “It’s not so bad. I’m supposed to be getting out soon, actually. It’s usually just for a few months.” 

“Is that what they’ve told you?” He snapped. Fleeting disbelief gave way to anger, and it showed in the way his expression darkened and his eyes burned into hers. “And you believe it? You’re a prisoner here, and they’re using you to build the prison.”

The swiftness of his response disarmed her, but not so much as the furor in his words. It drew up all the feelings she had been trying to bury. Aeris lowered her head and stared at her hands as they twisted together in her lap. She knew that. Of course she knew that, even though she’d spent most of this increasingly strange night trying to forget about it. It seemed so long ago already, but she remembered the spider’s silk and felt it winding around her again. If she’d already been caught in her lie, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to share a bit of the truth.

“… They’re sending me back to Midgar tomorrow. Home is there, but I… don’t think they’ll let me…”

The anger in his face softened as she spoke. Sephiroth waited for the end of the thought, but speaking the words weighed Aeris down to silence. After a moment, he ventured to complete the most important part of it himself.

“You do _want_ to be free?”

“Of course!” Aeris lifted her head again, eyes round. “Who wouldn’t? It’s just… I can’t…”

“I see,” he said as she dropped her eyes to her hands again. “In Midgar, then - we’ll meet again. I must go.” 

As though that settled everything, Sephiroth rose to his feet and bent to collect his sword. As he turned his back to her and started up the path, the questions in her mind compounded into a strange sinking feeling. What did he mean by that? And should she have hesitated? If she did tag along, what would happen?

At the edge of the light, he paused, looking back to her over his shoulder.

“Oh - And don’t let anyone know I was here.”

Aeris nodded when she realized, somewhat to her surprise, that she hadn’t planned to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh I've been waiting so long to share this one!
> 
> I drew a moment from the chapter while I was waiting:  
>   
> [Full View](https://64.media.tumblr.com/3e4e97662a64b8ad1c7e97e25c1ce1a7/3016c5ee6c96248c-9e/s1280x1920/471296eb845a6bde7c344394d10b299eee33ae6a.png)
> 
> Thank you to Nautilusopus and la_regina_scrive for reading through this chapter for me.


	7. High Winds

The airship bay built into Neo-Shinra Tower, like every other facility in the Tower, had been designed to impress. Its glass ceiling arced high and palatial above the walkways below, made up of many panels connected in an intricate lattice of dark ironwork. The structure evoked the feeling of a shipyard but with gloss and grandeur and perhaps more attention to detail that was reasonable to maintain over the long term. Most of the time, the docks stood empty. The only regular visitors to the city in its current state were small vessels carrying supplies in from Junon or Midgar, and all of them were dwarfed to the point of comedy. 

The Highwind did not suffer the same fate. Anchored in the bay, waiting for important cargo and more important passengers, it delivered the full effect the architects must have intended from the outset. Tifa, at least, was suitably impressed. She leaned against the long mosaic-tile wall in the passenger boarding area with her luggage gathered at her feet. Nearby, dock workers were busily preparing the boarding ramp. Tifa’s attention was fixed to the entourage standing alongside it in conversation. 

At the head of the pack was President Shinra, a cigar jutting from the corner of his mouth, looking neither pleased nor displeased with the conclusion of his tour. She supposed that was better than displeased. The dark-haired man in the smart navy suit - Tseng, was it? - was speaking to him, and though Tifa couldn’t hear what he was saying, she could tell from his mannerisms that it was overly polite. Lurking near the back was the sour-faced Professor who had been very rude with her yesterday when she had come to visit Cloud. Cloud himself stood just next to him, on his feet once again with his heavy sword on his back, as though nothing had ever happened. 

She couldn’t tell if that worried or encouraged her.

When the President finished boarding, Cloud broke from the group. Tifa waved him over, but he had already been heading in her direction. She got the first word in.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” 

“I’m okay. Even average SOLDIERs heal up quick,” Cloud answered in a way that seemed designed to remind her that he was well above average. “They’re keeping me posted here until the situation’s resolved.”

“Well… I’m glad you’re doing better. Just be careful here, okay?”

Cloud nodded. Folding his arms across his chest, he dropped the puffed-up military posture for something more casual.

“What about you? How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” Tifa’s tone carried the ghost of a sigh. “I called the landlord and they worked something out for me.”

“Yeah… Sorry about this. They’re looking at contractors as a security liability right now, but I’m sure they’ll ask you back when things cool off.”

“It’s okay. It’s kind of a downgrade, and not in the same building we went to visit, but at least I’ll still be going to Midgar.”

“Same rent though?” Cloud asked, the unspoken offer of gil behind the concern on his face.

“I’ll manage,” she said, waving his concern aside with one hand. “I held on to all that hazard pay. I’ll just have to be ready to open the school a few months sooner.”

“Right. Did you get in touch with your teacher?”

“Master Zangan? Yep. He said he’d help me recruit the students, but he doesn’t like the name.”

“What’d you go with?”

“Seventh Heaven.”

“Hmm…” Cloud stroked his chin, the caricature of a thoughtful expression on his face. He couldn’t hold it for long.

“Oh, come on! Not you too!”

“It’s good, it’s good - I was just rooting for ‘Cowgirl Kung-fu.’” His voice was innocent, but his face split into a devious grin. “More your style.”

“I outgrew that style!”

Cloud laughed, and despite her protests, Tifa joined him. She stopped abruptly when she noticed what was taking place over Cloud’s shoulder.

Throughout their conversation, workers had been moving cargo up the gangplank and into the ship. After so many unremarkable boxes, the last two items to be loaded were impossible to miss: Large cylindrical glass containers, carried by robots that seemed specially designed for the purpose. The first contained a creature of some sort, curled up and dozing. The second contained a person.

Inside was a girl in a pink dress, a familiar ribbon to match. With one shoulder leaning casually against the glass, she shifted her weight along with the bumps in the path as absently and easily as if she were riding the morning train. In her hands she held a plastic packet with a thin blanket and a small pillow. She stifled a yawn into her fist and then went back to tearing it open, managing to fish the blanket out as they spirited her away into the hull of the ship. 

“Cloud, is that — Aeris? What the hell? Why have they got her in a tube?”

“Specimen tank,” Cloud corrected, nonplussed.

“Huh?”

“All specimens go in tanks for transport, so they won’t be damaged during the trip.” His rote explanation did nothing to diminish Tifa’s horror. Cloud noticed and switched to a softer voice, less like something out of a corporate rulebook. “She’ll be fine, and it’s not like it’ll hurt her. She’s probably used to it.”

“So what,” Tifa frowned. “It’s okay then?”

“It’s… complicated.” Complicated. That was what Cloud usually said when he didn’t want to answer something straight. Tifa’s frown deepened despite Cloud’s imploring look. “Look, she’s okay, I promise. You saw the blanket, I’m pretty sure she was just going to have a nap in there anyway. They’ll let her out as soon as she’s safe on the other side.”

It didn’t convince her, but there was no time to press the issue further. Over the loudspeaker, a gruff voice announced that it was time for any remaining passengers to board, and added in afterthought that the crew had no plans to wait around for stragglers. 

“Guess I’d better get going,” she said with a grimace. Cloud nodded again. He seemed uncertain when she held one of her arms out for a hug goodbye, but accepted it with a half-hug of his own, equal parts earnest and awkward. That, at least, made Tifa feel better.

* * *

“Hey, excuse me!” Tifa shouted at whoever would listen. In the tank, Aeris looked up. Tifa cut in front of the guard convoy, slightly winded but ready to cause a scene. She had decided to forego stowing her luggage to chase down the tank with Aeris in it, and felt a little silly standing there with a suitcase in each hand, but fought away her own self-consciousness with pure gumption.

“All this can’t be necessary, right? She’s not dangerous, we’ve worked together. She should sit with the rest of the passengers!”

“Step away, ma’am.” A uniformed guard stepped between Aeris’ tank and Tifa, her chest puffed out. Aeris tensed. “Orders dictate the subject is to be contained while not under Shinra supervision.”

“Alright, I’ll supervise,” Tifa argued, squaring her shoulders in response to the challenge. “I have clearance already, and I’m still Shinra until the end of the day. Need me to sign something?”

The guard looked at her compatriot, who shrugged in a way that made it obvious that whatever the rule here was not clear.

“We’d need approval from an authority to—”

“I’m an authority.” 

Tifa recognized the gruff voice from the departure announcement. It matched its speaker well - a grizzled older man whose age she wouldn’t want to guess at wearing a dishevelled bomber jacket. He did not look impressed with the situation, and had the sort of face that seemed to have a lot of practice looking unimpressed. Rather than responding, the guards looked around at one another again, which tipped him from unimpressed into pissed off.

“Hey, jackass, she said she’d supervise,” he barked. “If it don’t work for ya, you can get the hell off my ship. I ain’t running a goddamn trafficking ring.”

“... Alright, Captain. We’ll let her out, but they’ll both need to be restricted to the hold so we can keep watch outside the door.” The guard turned to Tifa and jabbed a finger at her pointedly. “Head down there before take-off, or we’re leaving her in there.”

With a gesture of her hand, the guard restarted the convoy down to their destination. Aeris managed to flash a thumbs-up through the glass before they wheeled her out of sight. The captain rubbed the back of his head, sticking his cropped hair up at odd angles, and fished a battered cigarette out of the pack strapped underneath his goggles. He hung it on his lip and even unlit, it looked like it belonged there.

“Thanks for that, Missy. I owe you one. Haulin’ around a monster in a tank is one thing, but a girl…” He shook his head. “Wish I had the guts to tell the President where to stick it, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re still on the payroll.”

“I had to say  _ something _ ,” Tifa said, explaining it as much to herself as to him.

“And good on ya.” He stuck his hand out. “Captain Cid Highwind.”

“Tifa Lockhart.” A bit awkwardly, she set her suitcases down around her so she could take his hand and shake it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Huh, you got some grip on you, girl. They need me on deck, but I’ll keep ‘er steady as I can for you ladies.”

“Thank you, Cid,” said Tifa, as earnestly as she could muster. She was grateful to him for more than just the back up with the guard. Cloud had been so cavalier, and they had marched Aeris past every other passenger on board without any reaction short of a backwards glance. Even with the obvious cruelty of what was happening right in front of her eyes, Tifa had almost started to doubt herself. 

* * *

The hold was a small and windowless room that made Tifa grateful she wasn’t prone to motion sickness. It had fluorescent lighting with a green cast to it, no seats, and brackets on the metal wall that seemed custom designed for holding tanks mid-flight. Both of the tanks had been strapped into place, but one now stood empty. Aeris was free of it and busying herself with spreading the thin blanket on the floor in a vain attempt at creating somewhere a little more hospitable to sit.

“Sorry about this!” she said as she and Tifa settled against the hard wall. 

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Oh, I just meant— Well, it’s not very cozy in here, yeah?” Aeris smiled. “Thank you for your help, though. And for keeping me company. My dog here’s a great listener, but not much for conversation.”

She jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the other tank, which she was seated next to. Until now, Tifa hadn’t gotten a good look at it. She supposed the creature inside of it could be generously described as a dog, but it looked more catlike to her. It was hard to pinpoint any exact taxonomy given its bright red fur and the unnatural flame dancing at the end of its tail. When Aeris turned to look at it, it lifted its head off its paws and uncurled from its sleepy posture to sit upright instead. Aeris laughed. Tifa gaped, unsure whether to lean in for a closer look or back away.

“Is that... really your dog?”

“Mm, not really. But it’s nice to pretend, and he likes it, too. Right, Red?” Aeris laid a hand against the glass. To Tifa’s surprise, “Red” pressed his paw against her palm from the other side. Aeris giggled. “Good boy.”

Her face fell when she looked back to Tifa, whose expression was heavy with concern. None of this was normal, and watching Aeris play puppy with a caged beast - while kind of impressive - only worried her more. She leaned in closer and kept her voice as kind as she could.

“Aeris… What’s going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?” And why wasn’t anyone else asking, even Cloud?

“It’s... kinda complicated,” Aeris answered, which only reminded Tifa more of Cloud. Back on the climb, they didn’t seem to get along very well, but thus far Tifa certainly couldn’t see why not. 

“If you can’t explain it, then just tell me - do you need help?” She didn’t know what she could offer, but it was plain enough that she was sincere about offering it. Aeris looked for a moment like she might say something, might even say ‘yes’, but instead she just smiled to herself.

“You’re a really nice person, Tifa. But don’t worry about me. My problems are... a little odd, but I can handle them. Besides, I could have left last night if I  _ really _ wanted to.” Aeris leaned in for the last part, a note of playful conspiracy in her tone that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Maybe you should have,” Tifa frowned.

“Mm, that’s complicated too… but I’ve been thinking ‘maybe I should have’ myself,” Aeris sighed. She reached for the paltry pillow that had come in the set with the blanket and hugged it to her chest, going quiet for a moment. Tifa wanted to give her the space for it, but it didn’t last long enough. “Let’s switch subjects - I’m sure it’d cheer me up. Have you ever been to Midgar before?”

A small voice in the back of Tifa’s head told her she shouldn’t drop the topic, that Aeris was obviously deflecting and it’d be worth putting the screws to her to get to the truth of whether or not she was in trouble. Tifa’s small voices did not usually win out.

“Just once, to visit friends and find an apartment. I’m moving to the Sector 7 plate,” she said, still a little hesitant.

“Really? Well lucky you! You’re already friendly with a very experienced local. But... there aren’t really any mountains near Midgar, are there?”

“There are not,” Tifa confirmed, somehow packing all of the financial anxiety that came with that confirmation into three short words. She took a breath. “Actually, I’m one of those silly people you hear about - the kind who risks everything, coming to Midgar to chase a dream.”

Tifa knew very well how those stories could end, but she was determined that hers would have a happy outcome. So much hard work for so many years while every friend she’d ever had left town one after the other, each of them adding to the mounting pressure she felt to get herself out. Some headed to Midgar like she eventually decided to do, and some just went looking for somewhere better to raise the kids they’d had far too young. She remembered coming home after long days in the mountain, stuffing gil under her mattress, and then passing out on it, her body aching even in her sleep.

“Bet it’s not silly,” Aeris said softly. “Leaving everything you know behind takes a lot of guts.” She lowered her eyes briefly, that private smile still on her lips. “More guts than I have, anyway.”

Over the years she had been developing her plan, Tifa had slowly collected the support of the people in her life, some more tenuous than others. It had been a painstaking process at times, particularly to win over her father, requiring her to recite contingencies for every “what if” that made her sick to contemplate and lay bare every raw facet of her dream. This marked the first vote of confidence she had received from someone who wasn’t already invested in her success. Aeris’ words were easy enough to say, but the knowing, genuine temper to them touched her all the same.

“I’m going to open a martial arts studio,” she shared, smiling easily now. “Teach kids, people who want to learn to defend themselves, that kind of thing. I really think it’s something that can help people, even in a small way.”

“That sounds great,” Aeris chirped. “And you sure knew how to handle yourself when we had to get back to the city alone. Never seen anyone punch a wolf in the face before.”

She mimed a re-enactment of the scene to Tifa’s approving laughter.

“Say,” Tifa asked, tentative. “What do you think of the name ‘Seventh Heaven?’”

“Oh, that’s great!” Aeris beamed. “I love it!”

“You’ll have to come by when it’s open, then,” Tifa grinned back, vindicated. “I’ll give you a lesson on the house!”

* * *

The two of them whiled away the long hours of their journey in pleasant conversation, which came to an abrupt end as soon as they left the hold.

Aeris and Tifa heard the news from the nervous chatter of the passengers they passed on their way to the boarding steps. As soon as they stepped through the gateway, the pillar of smoke rising into the dense Midgar clouds verified what they had overheard. A terrorist group had bombed the Sector 1 reactor shortly after they had taken off. To the north, an entire slice of Midgar had gone dark. The sight was surreal, and more than a little unsettling.

“It looks pretty bad…” 

To one side of her, Tifa was stretching anxiously, a behaviour Aeris didn’t know was possible until now. Red was on the other side, still in his tank, but watching as closely and as gravely as either of them. Aeris swore at times he had a real intelligence to him. They were waiting for their transport on the Highwind’s landing strip, a repurposed parking lot a few blocks from Shinra tower and the central rail station. Tifa could have left and walked the five minutes to the train station, but insisted on waiting with her anyway.

Aeris tried to think of something positive to say, but couldn’t come up with much.

“Hopefully, it was mostly property damage.” 

Tifa nodded vaguely. A few meters away, a black luxury car was idling - the President’s limousine. A small band of guards waited nearby, all eyes trained on the boarding stairs. From the look of it, they probably didn’t have much longer together.

“Hey, Tifa… It wasn’t exactly first class, but the ride over here was pretty fun.” Tifa smiled and nodded her agreement, and Aeris swallowed a breath of smoggy Midgar air before the next bit. Had it always been so heavy? It was strange to know first-hand that air could feel any other way. “Anyway, I just wanted to say…”

Aeris froze. Over Tifa’s shoulder, she had a clear view of the President, emerging from the hull of the Highwind. He had only taken the first step downwards when she saw silver behind him and knew in a terrible instant what was happening, just before it happened. The President shrieked as the blade ran through him. He slumped forward on it like a puppet with cut strings and hung there until his body was thrown callously over the side of the staircase. President Shinra landed on the pavement with a sickening wet crack.

Sephiroth flew down the Highwind’s steps against a volley of gunfire. 

The guards waiting by the President’s car lasted only seconds. With his sword still lodged in some poor soldier’s chest and bodies strewn over the asphalt, he locked eyes with Aeris across the distance. Fierce and familiar green burned into her and the world around her seemed to blur. As it came back into focus, she realized that Tifa was stepping out in front of her with her fists raised.

“No, don’t!” She caught one of Tifa’s arms with both of her hands, and astonishment as much as her grip stopped Tifa from advancing.

Sephiroth didn’t wait, nor did he have the time to - more guards were streaming out of the airship and pouring into the lot from its edges. He closed the gap between them as fast as she could blink, tossing a materia to her underhanded. Tifa looked back to her in confusion as she caught it - Aero - and turned it over in her hands. Red blotted on her fingertips, from the blood speckled on its surface. More had slicked his coat and still dripped from the cruel edge of his blade.

Whether by impulse or out of a moment’s consideration for the beast inside, Sephiroth brought Masamune crashing through Red’s specimen tank. In the hail of shattered glass, he stepped towards Aeris, peering down into her wide-eyed face.

“Hurry,” was all he said.

The choice she couldn’t make had been made for her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured back to Tifa as she started to run.

Behind them, Red leapt free across shards of glass, a low growl rumbling in his throat as the guards pressed in closer. He charged forward through their fire, fangs bared and claws flashing. Sephiroth broke in the opposite direction, where more soldiers had started to converge on the path ahead. Close behind him, Aeris grit her teeth and drew all the power she could muster from the materia clutched tight in her fist. 

When she finally released the spell, the storming gale swept away any and all that barred their path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, Cloud and Zangan have no taste.
> 
> Thank you Nautilusopus for beta reading this chapter.


	8. Reverent Hearts

Aeris wheezed as she crumpled against the concrete wall. Her legs were burning. She ran the heels of her palms hard over her thighs to try to loosen her locked muscles, but gave up almost immediately - too much work to be doing while her lungs still felt fit to burst. It had been years since she’d last run for her life. Apparently, she was out of practice.

A train trundled past them, plunging them momentarily into flickering dark. From their small platform to the side of the tunnel, they were in no danger from the cars hurtling by, as long as they kept their arms and legs in. The soldiers out hunting them wouldn’t find them here either, though they’d need to keep moving - but moving was a tall order for Aeris at the moment. She lifted her face into the rush of the train’s tailwind as though it might help her catch her breath faster. Next to her, Sephiroth stood straight and tall, no more winded than a marble statue.

“Deep breaths, not shallow ones,” he coached evenly. “Go slowly.”

During their escape, he’d been impressed with her obvious talent for magic. After she swept away a group of gunmen in a single gust, he thought she might manage to keep up with him. It had soon become obvious that although she was gifted with materia, Aeris was more of a sprinter, and it would be generous to call her even that. Doubled up on the concrete, she pressed both her hands to her stomach and groaned as she tried to take his advice.

“You were… on the airship… the whole time?” she croaked between breaths.

“Mmhmm. In the chocobo stables.” The bird in his pen had been rather accommodating, and easy enough to quiet with gentle strokes just above the beak. He left that part out for the time being.

“Great… That’s… great.” 

Her breath was starting to return. With one of her hands braced against the wall, she struggled back to her feet, taking the hand up Sephiroth offered her partway through. She leaned back against the wall and willed her knees to feel less like jelly. Deep breaths, not shallow ones. Through them, she thought of Red barreling through a group of soldiers at the other end of the tarmac, and the flicker of fear in Tifa's eyes, and how she hoped the both of them were alright, and then about how it might be better not to think of them while she was trying to collect herself. Once she had enough air in her, she rounded on Sephiroth with all of the reproachful incredulity she’d been saving up.

“Did you _plan all that?_ ”

“Yes,” said Sephiroth. Aeris gaped at him. Apparently confirmation wasn’t what she had been after, but he couldn’t quite grasp her surprise, and his blank expression revealed as much. “Why did you think I came to Neo-Midgar?”

“I thought… I thought you came to rescue me?”

“No, I came to kill the President,” Sephiroth answered without missing a beat. Aeris goggled. Maybe elaboration would work better than bald candour.

“The resistance discovered half a year ago that security in Neo-Midgar remains lax and their SOLDIER presence is desperately understaffed. Working with that information, I calculated that the President’s inspection made for a perfect opportunity. Once I learned about you from the records there, I improvised.”

The explanation seemed reasonable to him, but she was still gawping. After long enough, he frowned and hazarded a guess at why.

“I’m no danger to _you_ ,” he tried.

“That’s not… I know that,” she said, despite the sense of relief that came with the confirmation.

“Are you upset?”

“Yeah, a little!” Aeris’ voice was by this point overflowing with exasperation. 

“Why? His life is no loss. He’s architected countless atrocities. The reactors, the invasion of Wutai, the razing of North Corel, and all that’s happened to both you and to me.” He listed each item with mounting intensity and by the time he was through the list, it was his turn for incredulity. “You can’t seriously object to his murder, can you?”

“I’m not exactly mourning over here!” Aeris shook her head. He’d even used the word ‘murder,’ so how was she supposed to explain that it was a tad disconcerting to see it happen, unexpectedly and right in front of her? She had no inclination to defend _President Shinra_ of all people, and did not get the sense from this conversation that his death was going to be extricable from her general stance on wholesale slaughter. Besides, she was out of energy at the moment, and he was out of Shinra rank and file to make examples out of.

“Just… If you have any other plans, now’s a good time to loop me in.”

Sephiroth’s tense posture seemed to ease at this and he nodded in assent.

“Alright. My affiliates are in Midgar for an operation, a resistance cell called Avalanche. I plan to rendezvous with them as soon as possible.”

“Avalanche? Isn’t that — the group that just bombed the Sector 1 reactor?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Aeris sighed, resigned. “Good to know.”

“Shinra will hunt for you,” he pressed, either ignoring her bout of fatalism or oblivious to it.

“They always do.” 

She pushed away from the wall and tested how her legs were feeling about bearing her up. They seemed okay for walking, but warned her not to run. That would probably be good enough for navigating the maintenance tunnels. She took another gulp of the smoggy, clammy, stuffy, train-exhaust Midgar air and felt a little better. Regardless of all of the particulars of her present circumstance, she was back on home turf and ready to claw back some sense of control.

“Guess I’m probably safest staying with you.” She paused and considered that for a moment more. “And since they only want me alive — I think — you’re probably safest sticking with me too. Where are you meeting up with Avalanche?”

“At their base in the Sector 7 slums.”

“You’re familiar with the slums?” Aeris asked in surprise, looking him up and down. It was hard to imagine him at the height of either fame or infamy wandering through Midgar’s most moribund districts. Even in the aftermath of a bloody escape, he had too much polish.

“No, but they shouldn’t be difficult to navigate.”

“Spoken like someone who doesn’t know the slums. But don’t worry, I grew up there.”

“You did?” 

“Well, apart from the labs."

He studied Aeris as she dusted off the front of her skirt, unaware, and marked another fact he’d never have guessed about her. Out of the specimen chamber and into the slum - it seemed a sorry life by his measure, though he supposed she demonstrated the resilience it demanded.

"Lead us out and I'll take us from there," she said, looking up again. "We’ll stop in Sector 5 first. I need to take care of some things.”

“‘Things’?”

“Well, for starters, I’m going to need my weapon. And then…” she brushed past him on the way to the maintenance door, trying not to wobble as she wrenched it open with resolute vigour. “I’m going to see my mom.”

* * *

Sephiroth was surprised to discover their first destination was a church. It was an old, dilapidated thing, forgotten and disused, but that it was there at all was a testament to Midgar's age and history. Most places of worship and the religions that erected them were functions of communities, a place for elders to pass on local legend, to share stories about venerated ancestors and folk spirits. 

This city had been without anything venerable for an age. Whatever faith had inspired the church's construction was lost. It had passed out of memory before the first plate blacked out the sky, though not before it had been pillaged for interesting imagery to use in children's books and advertisements. Here were the remnants of past devotion, a crooked cathedral and all its crumbling angels standing in stubborn defiance of their own uselessness in the eyes of a population that had no place left in their hearts for reverence.

Sephiroth took a liking to it immediately.

Aeris came here often, that much was obvious. The evidence was in the way she threw just enough of her weight against the heavy oaken door to open it and shepherded them absently around the rotting wood planks in the vestibule. With the door shut safely behind them, she headed straight up the aisle toward the altar, while he hung back at the entrance to take the place in. 

Even caked in grime, the stained glass let enough light through to cast coloured patterns onto the graying floor. The roof was half gone, but that hardly diminished the ambiance. Dust motes drifted down from the rafters through slivers of light shining down from above - a gap in the plates. The sunbeams filtering through were pale and weak, but they were still sunbeams. Aeris stood at their terminus, leaning over a patch of green on the ground. The whole building had a quiet beauty to it, but the _green_ —

He didn’t entirely trust his eyes until he drew closer and saw that yes, there were flowers here, struggling up from under the floorboards. Buds of white, yellow, red, pink; wherever the rays of sunlight touched, planks had been pried back to make room for the unlikely - impossible - blossoms. Against the far wall were empty planters, gardening trowels, a watering can with a smiling sunflower for a spout, all coated in a thin blanket of dust. Aeris clicked her tongue in disappointment as she surveyed the flowerbed, tapping her finger against her chin in thought.

“They’ve done their best without me, I suppose.”

This was apparently an everyday routine to her, and she undertook it blind to the little miracle she had cultivated. When she looked up, she read the question written on his face and answered with a pleased smile and a small shrug of her shoulders.

“I’m good at gardening,” she said. “I mean— Maybe you’re good at it, too?”

“I’ve… never tried,” he admitted. The understatement disarmed him. Back in the grandiose arctic oasis where they’d met, he’d thought their surroundings strangely fitting, though he hadn’t at all suspected her of having a hand in its cultivation. She had told him then that she didn’t know the first thing about being an heir to the Planet, but being able to coax flowers from toxic Midgar soil surely counted as some form of communion.

Aeris grinned, her hands behind her back as she watched him. He was certainly less intimidating now that he was standing here, looking over her and her garden with guarded curiosity. Next to her tiger lilies and stargazers he scarcely looked dangerous at all, though she’d already stepped over enough bodies to know better. Still, far more human - even if he didn't flinch in the face of her open inspection. It amused her a little, but she cut him a break and looked away first, back at her flowers.

"Well, I guess I can’t take all the credit. All my plants have to start right here if they’re going to grow at all. This is… a special place.” She paused and lowered her head, her bangs falling over her face. “… Maybe you can tell, but it feels a little closer to the Planet. And… this is where I can hear my mother.”

“Didn't you say we're going to see your mother?”

“Mm, yeah. We’re going to visit my adoptive mom,” Aeris explained. “My birth mother died when I was still just a kid. She… got badly hurt, escaping the labs. With me.” She looked up at him again, wearing a strange sort of smile that seemed like the prelude to an apology. Sephiroth’s solemn expression stopped one from ever arriving.

“Is that why you wouldn't leave when I asked you?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged. It really seemed like there were a lot of reasons at the time. Then again, here she was, safe in her sanctuary, the world looking brighter than it had in a long while. The spark of a long-forgotten secret hope that perhaps she wasn’t alone with her own history had come alive again, even if it had taken on the strangest form. The form had certainly contributed to her hesitation, too.

Sephiroth stood quiet for a moment as he considered her story, looking down into a patch of white lilies.

“You have my condolences,” he said, his hand a fist at his side. He frowned and thought better of it, the second try sounding far more drained than the first: “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” She gave him another cryptic smile. “What about you? You said your mother was a Cetra.”

“Yes,” he nodded. His gaze shifted slowly to the rafters, his mind’s eye toward a reverie. “She also passed on, before I had the chance to really know her. Growing up, I was only told that her name was Jenova, and that she had died giving birth to me - the earliest of Shinra's lies.

“On what was meant to be a routine mission to a small village on the Western continent, I discovered one of their abandoned research sites. Along with it, a library full of their records. The archives revealed to me the truth of my birth and my lineage. Shinra knew the Ancients had great power, power they wanted for themselves. A brilliant scientist called Professor Gast and his team… created me, using the living genetic material of a Cetran woman found preserved in ice. My mother.”

He paused here, staring into the sunlight and collecting a thought that Aeris recognized immediately. The pang of grief stung her, too.

“I understood, then. Regardless of the circumstances of my birth, I understood the greatness of my bloodline. I could feel it. I always knew that I was different, somehow, but until then I had nothing to place ‘how’ except for my excellence as a SOLDIER.” He let out a breath of mirthless laughter, an equally cold smile tugging at his lips. “Well, it’s proven useful in the war against Shinra. Shortly after discovering the truth, the cry of the Planet called upon me to bring them to justice. I understand my work since then has been fairly well publicized.”

It had been. Aeris knew better than to trust the papers, but the resurgence of the Wutain war was a fact that seemed to loom over everyone who wasn’t locked in a lab. The rest of the information though - that was new, and more than a little shocking. A name stuck out to her, like a bramble that hooked skin - Professor Gast. Their uncanny connection ran deeper than he knew. She drifted toward the front pew and sank slowly into it, her hands clenched in her lap as she sorted through her thoughts.

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, once she was ready. “It's hard to even imagine, but it must have been difficult. Learning all of that must have felt… Very sad, and very lonely.”

Her response snapped him back to the present, and at first he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. It wasn’t really a peculiar reply, but he realized he hadn’t been prepared for it either. He had shared the highlights of this story a few times in the past, in the same detached tones, with the same air of explanation. At the earliest telling, Godo Kisaragi had used it to deliver merciful judgement toward his once-bitter enemy. At the latest, Barret Wallace had nearly brought his fist through the table in his fury at the Shinra. How it had felt at the time never mattered so much as where it had brought him to. His _feelings_ were a recollection apart from the facts, and the ones she described were so distant now as to be foreign. By contrast, the vehemence that remained in him felt too fresh to remember at all.

“… I suppose so,” he said, and left it at that. The creaking floor filled the brief silence as he moved toward the pew, seating himself on the same bench at a respectable distance from her. Aeris leaned into the space between them.

“You said you didn't get the chance to know her, but do you ever… talk to her? Your mother, I mean.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Does she ever answer?”

She was three for three on surprising remarks, and this one so much more than the rest. 

“Yes. Not often, in bits and pieces. I can feel her presence at times.”

From the way Aeris' face lit up, his expression must have given his answer before it had left his mouth. Seeing her response, he couldn’t help another breath of laughter. He hadn’t been concerned with the habit, hadn’t hid it from others on purpose, and it wasn’t surprising exactly to confirm that such contact was a privilege of his blood, but it was a strange sort of assurance to see such open recognition for it nevertheless.

“It’s the same with me! I can only hear her sometimes, but whenever I do, it’s always here. So I like to think that if I’m here… she can always hear me.” Aeris' sincere smile broke into faint laughter, and she waved it away self-consciously. 

“Okay, I’m going to talk to her for a little, just to tell her I'm safe.” She folded her hands together, bringing them up to beneath her chin. “We can head out after that. But while you wait, you should give it a try — this spot might work for you too.”

It might, but he wasn’t certain of it. He could sense the power here now that she had called his attention to it, but the church had felt stranger and stranger the longer he’d lingered there, like something invisible pushing out against him the way all the green struggled against the floorboards. Still, as Aeris fell silent, he brought his hands to rest open-palm on his thighs, closed his eyes, and gave it a try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is much more fun to write when my leads are actually together, go figure.
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive for proofreading.


	9. Expectations

In her brand new Midgar apartment, Tifa was acquainting herself with the floor. Her arms and legs sprawled across the laminate as she lay stretched out on her back in the apartment's single room. Her new futon stood in the corner, still in the wrapping. She'd bought it at the row of shops under her apartment and carried it along with her luggage up two narrow flights to her creaky front door. About all she had the energy for after that was plugging the phone line into the wall and dialing out the number Cloud had left for her in what looked to be his neatest handwriting.

“You could’ve— could’ve been— I can’t _fucking_ believe it,” stormed Cloud on the other end of the line, for at least the third time. By now, she was numb to the could-haves. “I should have come with you. I should have been there. Should have known that he’d target — Ugh. I’m sorry. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” said Tifa, again for the third time. She was starting to pick favourites out of the patterns in the ceiling's yellowing popcorn texture. Whoever had lived here before her had enhanced them all with cigarette smoke.

“Good. Good. Have you got power?”

“Yeah. I think only Sector 1 is affected." That wasn't wholly true, and never would be where reactor explosions were concerned, but at least the lights were still on. "I bought candles and peanut butter, just in case.”

“There won’t be a just-in-case, I’ll be on a flight down to Midgar in an hour. Everything’s gonna be fine. And— You’re safe, Tifa.”

“I know.” Tifa let her head roll to the side, curled her fingers tighter around the handset. “Thanks.”

“Is, uh… Is the apartment good at least?”

She had been dreaming of a modest one bedroom. She’d imagined unpacking all her things at once, and getting Cloud to help her but showing him up at all the heavy lifting. Once they were done setting up knick knacks on new furniture chosen from cool thrifty antique places, they’d go out into the bright lights of the sleepless city. They’d find a tiny-but-cozy pizza place and laugh over a pie together while the night cooled around them, in a vibrant city where no one was being blown up or terrorized or murdered or kidnapped right in front of her.

Tifa shrugged.

“Close enough.”

* * *

The flowers in Aeris’ church had been astounding. Their progeny surrounding her home were just absurd. 

Admittedly, Sephiroth was not familiar with the slums, but the majority of what Aeris had led him through had a certain consistency to it. Corrugated metal and graffitied concrete and a lean, jaundiced quality to everything - including the people, from whom he tried to keep his distance. As far as he could tell, the tucked-away nook where her house was located was nearly swampland. It ought to look as dingy as everything else, and perhaps it once had, before she and her mother had covered nearly every inch of the yet-pliant earth with perennials and clover.

At the door, Aeris took him by the arm and insisted he come in, while he insisted he ought to stay outside and keep watch. On their way to a compromise, her mother interjected to insist he have something to drink, as a pretext to further insisting that he clarify his intentions with her daughter immediately. On the other side of all of the insistence, he found himself alone on the rooftop patio, eyes trained on the road and a glass of cold tea with lemon perched nearby on the sill.

The sea of flowers and quaint rattan furniture brought the disorienting quality of recent events to a sharp point. In the wake of his long sought-after victory, he had never expected to feel so out of place. Not that he ever planned for the afters, but it seemed to him that by rights he should be enjoying the momentum of conquest, the blown reactor and the dead despot spurring him onward to bring Midgar its reckoning. He wanted to see the city wreathed in flame - its keepers consumed by the cleansing fire. Instead, he sat quiet in a tranquil beam of pale daylight, perched on the end of a floral print cushion. Amid the disconcerting mundanity of it all, he recounted to himself the events that had brought him here.

It wasn’t the first time he’d discovered he’d been lied to, that beliefs he’d held about himself and his place in the world had been proven wholly false. It _was_ the first time since the last time, which felt significant somehow. It set confusion and uncertainty crawling through him all over again. Back then he had transmuted emotion into action, into commitment and follow-through. His need to mete out retribution to Shinra became the root from which everything else in the past five years had grown. Whatever choice he made or branch he followed, it all sprouted from the same bough, and there had been nothing else growing in the landscape to compete for his attention.

He looked out at the flowers again and allowed himself a sip of the tea.

Movement on the horizon caught his eye. He set the glass down and rose to his feet, looking closer. A streak of red was tearing up the path toward the house. Sephiroth recognized it by movement - the beast in the specimen tank that he'd freed at the landing. Perhaps unwisely, if it was back now with a taste for blood. He picked up his sword and hopped over the banister, alighting on the gables on his way to the ground. 

Aeris must have heard from the inside, as she emerged from the door in short order with the battered metal staff she’d retrieved from the church readied in hand. By now the thing was barrelling up the garden path. Sephiroth dropped into a ready stance, and at a glance Aeris followed his lead, but it shook out its mane and slowed to a trot as it approached. He watched Aeris as she lowered her staff and stepped forward, a look of delight spreading over her face.

"Red…? Red!” She jogged forward and bent down, hands braced on her knees. “Thank goodness you’re alright! And thank _you_ for helping us. Did you follow my scent here, boy? Good dog! Very good dog!"

The beast sat up on its hindquarters, staring at them through one slit golden eye, scar tissue running through its twin. Its tail swished back and forth behind it, the light at the end of it curled carefully away from the clover. Sephiroth stared at it, kept his guard, but rounded on Aeris. Her mistake could not be allowed to stand without comment.

"What are you talking about, _dog?_ It's a cat."

"I am neither, thank you," it said in a level baritone. 

Aeris started about a foot into the air, which was good for how minute it made his jump look in comparison. The two of them exchanged a look with one another.

"You… you can talk?!" Aeris clutched a hand to her chest, staggering backwards.

"Yes," said the cat, who he supposed was named Red. "Aeris. I apologize for not letting you know sooner. Introducing myself to a field researcher was what enticed them to trap me to begin with, and I had rather hoped they would lose interest if I kept silent. Thank you for speaking to me, regardless. I appreciated the company."

Aeris gawped.

"I told you _a lot_ of things!" she squeaked.

“So you did. But I will keep your many personal frustrations and your amusing thoughts about Shinra employees in utmost confidence.”

"What do you want?" Sephiroth interjected, suspicion overtaking shock.

"To get out of this place, please,” said Red, shaking his head. “It is noisy and crowded and I had a terrible time tracking you, even with the smell of chocobo to follow."

Sephiroth bristled. He'd been eager to wash up, but hopeful that the scent was faint to normal human noses. He glanced surreptitiously to Aeris, who was certainly keeping it to herself if she’d noticed.

"Red… can I still call you Red?" asked Aeris, tentative.

"Yes."

"You helped us get away. We'll help you." She turned to Sephiroth, hands on her hips in a pose that brooked no argument. "Let's take him with us. Someone at your base must be able to help with getting out of Midgar."

Sephiroth looked from Aeris, her expression sure and steadfast, back to Red, who tipped his head to one side imploringly.

"Fine," he sighed. He always did have a soft spot for cats.

* * *

Aeris tried to be quieter. The loud crunch of her boots on the gravel worsened her nerves (which she resented having in the first place) for how much the noise called attention to her. It was hardly her fault that _both_ of her companions apparently knew how to walk as silent as shadows. But what were they being so quiet for, anyway? Given all the monsters they’d fought on the way there, she was starting to think they could afford a little more crunch. It would have made her feel less like they were creeping up on something dangerous.

She told herself sternly that she shouldn’t be nervous. After all, she’d met a terrorist before - technically she was friends with one, as of a few hours ago. That seemed to be working out quite well if you just ignored all the unsettling parts. Plus, one might argue that the Turks were professional terrorists of sorts, and she’d had a drink with each of them by now - not to mention plenty of practice ignoring the unsettling parts. Nothing to worry about. No reason an unknown group of bombers should give her the jitters.

She reflected that it was probably the “group” designation that had her picturing the worst of Midgar’s leering street toughs all decked out in bandoliers.

Sephiroth had taken the lead at the gates. The path he took them along was winding and complicated, but he seemed to see some rhyme or reason to all the detritus they were ducking through. Once they were near to the heart of the train graveyard, Aeris spotted their destination in the form of a cluster of intact cars, lit up with dim light from the inside.

“Wait until they’re finished,” Sephiroth instructed before she knew what he was talking about. As they drew closer to the main car and hovered outside of it, she caught the end of the conversation he must have been referring to.

"Ms. Chekhov taught you 'goodnight'? Okay, say it for me… Wow, you're fixing to learn more Wutain than Daddy!" A man laughed, quiet but full. 

“Chekhov shmeckhov, I _already_ taught her that one,” A young girl’s voice, twice normal speed.

“Yuffie says ‘goodnight’ too,” the man added briskly.

"And Auntie Jessie sends kisses!" a third voice called.

"Auntie Jessie sends kisses," he repeated. "Love you, baby girl. Be good. Talk to you tomorrow."

Aeris peered curiously past the doorframe and found not a bandolier in sight. The anxiety had already dissipated - these people seemed normal enough, which was why it was strange to see Sephiroth leaning against the metal siding on the other side of the door, his face somewhere between grimacing and grave. Why were they waiting outside for what sounded like a normal phone call? He made no move to explain his reticence, but Aeris searched for a reason.

Perhaps they weren’t on very good terms with him. He _had_ been Shinra for a very long time. Maybe they treated him with the same sort of distanced disdain that she received from the lab staff - all of them eager for the usefulness of her presence and loathe to deal with her as a person. They had often made friendly phone calls to family and planned dinners together while she sat in scrubs on a sterile table listening in and waiting out the remnants of the anaesthetics. She felt a pang of sympathy over the explanation she had invented for him.

He waited a few moments until the chatter moved on to something else and seemed to steel himself to enter. With a meaningful glance to Aeris and Red, he mounted the metal steps into the train car. Aeris followed him into the doorway for a better look.

“Well well, if it ain’t the man of the hour!”

The man from the phone call was even larger than Sephiroth, who looked like he felt the impact when the former clapped him hard on the arm in congratulations. He was grinning ear to ear, and his good-natured laugh echoed through the train car.

“‘Bout brings a tear to my eye to see that sorry bastard in the ground where he belongs. Wish I could've been there, but the Planet needed us to light up those reactors.”

“But both plans went off without a hitch, and it’s been all-day coverage ever since,” added an excited woman surrounded by snaking cables and backlit by twin monitors.

“Yeah, none of the juicy details though. Plus, I dusted like a hundred guys and they're still giving _him_ all the credit! Hey Seph!” The last person in the room was a short haired teen folded into a beat-up chair. She looked set to interrogate him on why he was hogging all the headlines, but her sharp eyes settled on Aeris over his shoulder. “Who’s the girl?”

“Don’t call me ‘Seph.’” He sounded for once as exhausted as he looked.

He glanced over his shoulder and motioned for the both of them to come in. All eyes were fixed on the door, but Aeris didn’t move. Her sympathy had been clearly misplaced, and her assessment of the situation all wrong: Contrary to her imagination, Sephiroth had _friends_. Vibrant ones, too, which contributed to her lingering disbelief. Red entered in front of her while she collected herself.

“A girl _and_ a cat!”

“Say what? That’s a dog,” said the man.

“I am neither,” sighed Red, sounding just as tired as Sephiroth as he sat at his heel. Aeris laughed into her hand and wondered if she’d jumped as high as anyone in the room did. They were looking at her now, so she didn’t keep them waiting any longer.

“I’m Aeris,” she said with a little wave. “Sorry, no tricks. But a talking dog is a tough act to follow.”

“She’s a Cetra,” Sephiroth said bluntly, gesturing to her. Aeris stopped waving abruptly and stared at him for giving up her secret so easily, though not as much as they were gawking at her.

“What? For real?” The man had a certain wonderment to the way he was looking at her. “Thought you were the last of them, though.”

“So did I. I discovered her in Shinra custody.”

“Hmm. I didn’t realize that’s why they had captured you,” mused Red. The group started again as he lifted one of his paws thoughtfully to his chin, or rather the underside of his snout. He was too busy considering Aeris and Sephiroth to notice. “Survivors of the Cetra…”

“Okay, ignoring _that_ weirdness - she doesn’t look all that special. I mean, _you_ really stick out, y’know?” The teen grinned wide after delivering her assessment. “But aren’t you Ancients wicked strong with materia?”

“I’m not bad,” Aeris admitted in airy understatement.

“Don’t talk about her like she’s not standing right there, Yuffie! Sorry, nobody’s got any manners around here.” The girl stepped over the tangle of wires with practiced grace and waved to Aeris in a gesture of introduction. “I’m Jessie. Nice to meet you, Aeris - glad he got you away from the bad guys. And you too, um—”

“They have called me ‘Red,’ and you are welcome to do the same.” He bowed his head politely.

“Red,” Jessie nodded.

“Guessin’ they had you in a cage too, talking dog and all—”

“He’s _clearly_ a cat,” argued the teen.

“—Anyway, couldn’t’ve been pretty.” The man jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Barret Wallace. Avalanche’s my outfit. You’re both welcome to shelter with us. Sephiroth don’t trust easy, so if he’s vouching for you, that’s good enough for me.”

“Understatement," balked the teen. "What the hell were they doing to you to get _him_ to help you? I mean I guess he’s got the cat thing and you’ve got the Ancient thing or whatever but—”

“You gonna introduce yourself?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” The girl grinned as she issued a jaunty salute. “Yuffie here. Heart and soul of the party, shinobi of Wutai, and destroyer of Shinra extraordinaire!”

“It’s nice to meet you all!” Aeris beamed around the room. Back at the house, she had leaned eagerly across the kitchen table and recounted everything that had happened so far to her mom, but already found herself wishing she could go back and add this twist to her story. “Thanks for letting us stay here. I’ll help however I can.”

At this point, Sephiroth lifted his face out of his palm.

“I’ll be in my cabin for a while.”

“Good thinking,” said Yuffie. “You smell like chocobo.”

* * *

With one of his best specimens on the lam, the other in the midst of a transcontinental flight, and the executive branch above him in complete chaos, Hojo found himself with time on his hands. Of the many squelching, undesirable things he often had on his hands, time was one of the worst.

Trips to the coffee machine were one way to kill it. If he caught enough people to berate between his office and the kitchen, he could perform quite the culling. Around his third trip that day, the shine had started to come off and the shakes had started to set in, a dreadful side effect that he had never encountered in his youth, no matter how many shots of espresso went into his mug. For the fourth, Hojo took his lukewarm decaf to the executive’s lounge and settled on the leather sofa in front of the television.

If Shinra Senior had it his way, his assassination would most certainly not be all over the news. No, they’d have aired some sort of fluffy cover story about a vacation - hmm, there was an idea - or perhaps illness, while a crack team worked around the clock to calculate the best angle from which to deliver the blow to the public. But the President had failed; his practices and preferences were not embedded enough in the networks that survived him. They came to heel at Rufus’ first order, which was to cry from the rooftop that his father was dead as a doornail, and the whole business had been dreadfully undignified.

The upshot was that Sephiroth’s picture was on the screen.

Hojo stared at it. His foolish, bitter, wayward son. It had been so very, very long since he’d seen him in anything other than a conflict journalist’s black-and-white candid. He couldn’t help but wish he’d been there on the tarmac, the mortal consequences be damned.

It was unfair, really, when he thought about it. Sephiroth had come all the way to Neo-Midgar in pursuit of the President and hadn’t even thought to pay him a visit as well. A visit would have meant certain death, of course, but Hojo took offense regardless. And now Shinra Junior had greenlit his father’s cockamamie idea to try to kill Sephiroth. It wouldn’t work, of course. The notion that such a preposterous plan could stop _Sephiroth_ offended him. They were only inviting further retaliation.

Still. That might mean a visit of his own, if he got himself down to Midgar in time.

Hojo considered this through a bitter gulp of coffee. If his reckoning came, it would surely be far more intimate than the President’s. He could probably get a word in before it happened, and it probably wouldn’t happen all at once. There was too much bad blood between them for the moment not to linger. Would it be the sword? He hoped not. Even Sephiroth must agree that he deserved something more personal. He set his mug aside and crossed his hands over his throat, pressed hard against it with his thumbs, closed his eyes. He could almost see his face, eyes rung black, as they always seemed to be in photos these days, and alight with wrath; pure and beautiful in their clarity. 

The Professor chuckled to himself, and the noise came out strange and strangled as he pressed his hands tighter against his throat.

It had truly been _so_ long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voting is officially open for Team Cat vs. Team Dog.
> 
> The original version of this chapter contained the following line in the opening Tifa scene, removed because I have since become a person who purchases candles and thus realized it makes no sense:  
> "The candles would help, too. Even if the power didn’t go off for reasons of terrorism, she’d already run the numbers on how much she could save by foregoing Shinra’s outrageous utility bills."
> 
> Thank you to Nautilusopus for pre-reading!


	10. Meeting Resistance

As far as Aeris could tell, Avalanche’s camp had only been there a few months. It was long enough that the old train hulls were starting to look lived in. The main room had maps of Midgar and diagrams of industrial architecture pinned up to its walls with marker circles around points of interest. Mismatched furniture pushed together at the centre of the space made up the meeting table, which doubled as the dining table, and also the kitchen counter whenever someone brought out the hot plate. Ingredients that weren’t shelf-stable were stored in one of the mini-fridges, the larger one that was not labelled _PROPERTY OF WUTAI, KEEP OUT_ and filled mostly with fizzy drinks. 

There were personal touches from each of them, as well. Jessie had a few plastic models amidst her gadgets and monitors. Aeris learned that one of them was hooked up to a cable feed. Apparently it was extra difficult to steal out here, but Jessie had managed it anyway. Near Yuffie’s mini-fridge was an embroidered Eastern-style cushion that she used as seating for a small workbench, where she looked to be crafting lockpicks. Barret commanded the war table and the standing punching bag in the corner next to it. He also appointed himself in charge of their small collection of spices and sauce bottles (ranging from “spicy” to “deadly”).

True to her word, Aeris stepped in to be helpful. Under Barret's practiced leadership, Aeris took on all the tasks that were difficult for someone with a gun for one hand, most of it prep work. She chopped bell pepper and onion while he argued with Yuffie over how much chili oil qualified as too much, and from the sound of it their disagreement was longstanding. Red's plate was ready first - a portion of ground beef and rice, unseasoned - and he watched Aeris expectantly as she tried to work out whether it was more appropriate to set it on the table or the floor.

Table, she decided, and she knew she had made the right choice as he jumped onto the bench and sat, waiting primly for everyone's meal to be served. She had a lot of questions she wanted to ask him in private later, but also had no idea how many of them were polite.

Soon they were all crowded around the dinner table, picking at their meals and occasionally at each other. Listening to them talk and laugh and, in Yuffie's case, speculate openly about Red while the others tried to remind her of her manners - all of it left Aeris feeling full in a way that had nothing to do with the modest dinner. When their plates were empty, Barret produced a creased and folded photo from his jacket pocket and smoothed it out in the centre of the table. He meant it as a visual aide to his introduction of Avalanche, but couldn’t resist pointing out the most important figure first.

“That’s my sweet little girl, Marlene - you probably heard us talking to her earlier,” he explained, pointing out a very small girl in a pink dress.

“How did you know we overheard?” asked Red.

“Eh, timing,” said Yuffie. “Seph always dodges calls to Marlene. He’s not, like, subtle.”

"Think he's more scared of her than the other way around by now," grunted Barret.

“Probably from the time she cried ‘cause he wouldn’t let her braid his hair,” added Jessie, amused, “You should have seen his face!”

"She's adorable," said Aeris, smiling both at the girl in the picture and at Jessie’s story. She really would have liked to see his face.

“That’s Biggs and Wedge,” Jessie continued, running a finger over two men on either side of her in the picture. “They were with us here at first, but they got pretty sick, had to go back to Wutai. Something stubborn has been going around the slums here. Part of why we went with this set up in the outskirts."

"Them, Jessie and me, we’re the original Avalanche,” Barret explained. “We were one of the first anti-Shinra groups that joined up with the resistance in Wutai.” Here, he pointed at the pagoda and the mountains towering in the background of the shot. He lifted his hand away from the photo after that and scrubbed it across his beard in a moment of thought.

“‘Course there’s lots of other outfits now. People come from all over these days. They all got their own reasons for fighting the Shinra, and we got ours. I imagine you got yours too, and damn good ones. You ever think about joining up?” He turned to look at Aeris here, ardent passion for the cause shining through on his face. “If you’re a Cetra, then you gotta know how bad the Planet's hurting."

"Well…"

"Go easy, Barret.” Jessie laid a hand gently on his arm. “They only just got their freedom."

"Suppose we got plenty of manpower for handling the other reactors,” Barret relented with a nod, “‘least as long as Sephiroth's still with us."

"Is he not one of you?" asked Aeris.

"Him and me are like special guest members,” chirped Yuffie, planting her hands on the table and leaning in. “Usually Seph works for my old man. Or… with him? Whatever, doesn’t matter, they’re not here to correct me.” She reached forward across the table and jabbed a finger at a stern looking older man in traditional armour. Yuffie stood next to him with a wide grin, flashing a peace sign.

“That's my dad. And check out how pissed he looks in this picture - must have just told him I was going with you all to Midgar, heh! He’s so stuffy, I’m basically a prodigy and he still never wants me to do any of the exciting stuff."

"Hey, your father's a great man. You should show him some respect," Barret chided. Yuffie rolled her eyes.

"Ugh, not the Old Man Solidarity Speech again."

“Now you listen—”

Aeris studied the picture while the conversation diverted. Everyone in the room was in it, with the same notable absence reflected: Sephiroth was nowhere to be found. His influence was absent from the living quarters as well. Reportedly the cramped notes on the map that looked like doctor's handwriting were his, but none of the clutter that added colour and warmth to the room had anything to do with him. Reflecting on what they had told her at dinner, she wondered if he preferred it that way.

When they got up from the table, she went back to the pan to make up a plate to bring as the pretext for what she needed to say to him.

"Oh, don't bother," said Jessie, one foot out the door on her way to take watch. "He'll get his own later."

"Yeah, once we're sleeping. Like a rat with a hair care regimen."

"Well that's not very nice," said Red.

"True though,” said Yuffie, flippantly. “He's badass, but he's also a total freak."

“That’s even less nice,” Red answered dubiously.

"It’ll just be this once,” said Aeris, scooping leftover stir-fry onto the plate. “I want the credit for how well it turned out.”

Midgar showed little difference between day or night, but you could catch a glimpse of the sun when it dipped below the lip of the plate. Slum sunsets weren't much more than a blood-red blur through the smog, but Aeris had missed them all the same. She watched a narrow slice of crimson sky as she followed Jessie, who first pointed out where Aeris would be sleeping, then where Sephiroth's quarters were located, in the train furthest from the central cluster. Waving goodbye to Jessie, Aeris crunched cheerfully across the gravel to Sephiroth's car, knocked briskly at the door, and waited.

Eventually, it opened with a creak of metal. Sephiroth stood behind it with one hand still poised on the knob. His gloves and pauldrons were missing and he wore his coat on his shoulders, as though it had been thrown on in haste. Taken with the way the fastening belts hung unbuckled against his chest, his attempt at modesty came across as half-hearted. Parts of his hair still hung damp and heavy in curtains over his shoulders, and something in his care regimen carried lingering notes of bergamot. The annoyed look on his face softened when he saw Aeris was there to deliver his dinner, but the tight line of his mouth remained.

"There's no need."

"I won't bother you too much, promise," said Aeris, flicking her eyes up to his face and putting on her most winning smile. His fingers drummed on the door handle in the time it took him to consider and relent. He took the plate from her, stepped aside, and ushered her in.

Aeris' first impression was that there was remarkably little of him in his quarters as well. All of the cars were spartan by necessity, but his more closely resembled a supply closet. Still, she picked him out in places. He had a collection of materia laid out neatly and carefully organized, and either he kept a lot of it or he had put himself in charge of the stockpile. A row of black bottles stood next to an empty basin, along with thin towels folded or hung to dry. On an upturned crate that doubled as a table were his shoulder guards, the great gash in the left one mostly mended now, and the tools that had mended it already packed away to be replaced with the other maintenance equipment. He wrapped the contents of the little table in the cloth that had covered it and put it to the side, setting the plate down on it instead.

Aeris hovered in the middle of the room, holding her hands together in front of her stomach, not really sure where to put herself. He’d opted to remain standing expectantly with his arms crossed, though that might have been a function of the fact that there was nowhere for two people to sit. Well - the bed, maybe, but even if he weren’t standing guard-like in front of it, even Aeris wasn’t _that_ brash. She figured she had best just get to the point.

"I just wanted to say… I know it’s not why you were there, but — thank you. For helping me get out.” He nodded graciously, and Aeris looked down to the floor, still not sure why talking about her time with Shinra always felt like a confession. “I… really hated it there. I was there against my will, but it was still hard to… Well, I guess it might have looked kind of cushy, but—”

“ _Cushy?_ ” One of his brows arced over his eye. He watched her look up in fleeting surprise, like she hadn’t caught what she’d said until he repeated it, then wave her hands dismissively with a smile.

“— it’s not like they were vivisecting me or anything.”

“No, of course not.” He unfolded his arms and relaxed them at his sides, a sardonic note to his voice. “You’re far too valuable to risk any permanent damage. They'll use disposable subjects for that sort of experimentation and find some other way to catalogue your internals.”

Aeris paused and considered him. Her tone had played it off like hyperbole, but she knew for a fact that he was right. The other methods of cataloguing were various forms of biopsy or imaging liquid in gradations from disgusting to terrifying. Frankly, she’d also witnessed some of the vivisection. 

“Were you in the labs too?”

“In a sense, though not in the way that you were,” he said, slow enough to make her think he was considering how much to explain and how much to omit. “I'm familiar with Professor Hojo’s methodology. He was often involved with my… training.”

"Ugh, then your training must have _sucked_.”

That earned her an amused smile. Aeris folded her hands together at the small of her back and returned it.

“You know,” she said, eager to move on from the topic, “your friends are nicer than I thought they'd be." 

_Friends?_ Sephiroth echoed to himself. He hid his surprise, but wondered at how she had come to such an incongruous conclusion. It was true they had all worked together for some time now, and made for decent collaborators, but friendship was another thing entirely.

"They make for surprisingly reliable allies,” he answered, choosing his words particularly. “Barret is a good man. One of the few who understands what needs to be done. Yuffie's father, as well."

"How about Yuffie?"

"… She's very talented for her age."

"Oh, that was more diplomatic than I expected from you! Good job!" Aeris laughed, so brightly that he found himself smirking along. "I guess she agrees with you about Red, anyway."

"You mean she's _correct_ about Red. But what was it he said about keeping your amusing observations to himself? I'll admit, I'm curious."

"Well, well,” she grinned. “I didn’t take you for a gossip."

"I'm sure you were very objective."

"It felt that way at the time! You'll just have to look forward to my objective observations about other things."

"Mm."

The light in her eye carried into her expression when she switched to the next topic.

"So. What happens now?"

“What do you mean?”

"Y’know,” she rolled forward on the balls of her feet. “Now that we’re safe and sound and properly acquainted and all.” 

Sephiroth considered her. Safe and sound seemed a bit of an exaggeration - particularly for her. He might be accustomed to sleeping in mountain caves and train cars, but he had been to her house, and knew that she couldn’t say the same. He let his head lilt to the side and waited for whatever she was driving at.

“I… I want to learn more,” she continued, the smile on her face looking a little self-conscious now. “About being an Ancient."

"Cetra,” he corrected automatically, nodding as he did. “As do I."

"Right, Cetra. But if that's what we both want, maybe we could do it together. For starters, there must be some things we can teach each other. Like — about the church earlier.” Her voice was rising as she spoke, her hands moving in sweeping gestures, animated by excitement and promise. 

“And, and — there must be more than either of us know — out there, somewhere in the world. Old places, places close to the Planet, where we could actually hear things clearly. I saw a little bit of them up in the North. And the Cetra research teams were so big, and they were always finding things that they couldn’t understand or couldn’t use but maybe — maybe you and I _could_ understand.”

Sephiroth’s arms folded over his chest again as he took all of this in. There was much that he didn’t understand either, and so little that he had managed to glean from sparse histories assembled by those without any real stake in them. A whole piece of himself that had been carved away from him for most of his life, and too often neglected since. It could be understood and cultivated into — into something. Something more than purpose. The Cetra were a proud and powerful people, and for as much as he fought Shinra in the light of their legacy, he could admit to himself that he still wanted more to inherit from them. A better way to honour the mother who whispered a litany of injustice to him through his dreams. 

He started to pace as he spoke the problem.

"Shinra _must_ be dealt with,” he said, resolute, the words coming out even more firmly than he had anticipated. 

“You’ve been ‘dealing with’ them for the last 5 years, haven’t you?” Aeris asked, her eyes tracking him to and fro across the room.

“Yes, and I’ve dealt them a blow they can't be allowed to recover from. The time to act against them is now. My focus is needed, here in Midgar.”

He realized, as he watched Aeris’ face fall, watched her try to hide her disappointment, that he had said much the same on the eve of every decisive resistance operation back in Wutai. They burned true in him regardless. He forced his pacing to an end and his eyes back to hers, staid and stalwart.

“Does getting back at Shinra really have to come first?” she asked gently. He had half-prepared his answer, ready to correct her mistaken notion that this was about something so juvenile as _getting back_ at them at all, but she continued in a quieter voice that commanded his attention despite himself. “Even before discovering more about yourself?” She lowered her eyes, brow knit over them. “It just… It feels like there’s this brand new path that’s opened up in front of us. It’s a little scary, to be honest. Sudden. But it’s there. Isn’t there room for something different? For seeing where it could lead you?”

He made a fist at his side, but suddenly didn’t feel like arguing.

“For now, you should stay here,” he concluded. “We’ll talk again, and learn what we can from each other.”

“… Alright,” she nodded. She looked down at her hands twisted together in front of her and stretched them out to her sides, smiling again when she lifted her head. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair, then.”

As she stepped toward the door, he followed after her. Something about the end of the conversation didn’t quite sit right with him, but he didn’t have the first inkling of what might change that, much less what it was in the first place. The conclusion he’d reached was sound, even if it wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. He pushed the discomfort away and gestured at the plate she’d brought him instead.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t mention it,” she nodded, her playful smile fixed back in place. “But maybe you should come to dinner next time. I _think_ they wouldn’t mind having you.”

* * *

In the dead of night, Aeris woke with a start to the sound of someone slamming on the door.

“Hey!” Yuffie’s voice called from outside the door. “Get up! And come quick!”

With the heels of her palms she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and ignored the ache in her back as she pulled herself up from the seating bench that served as her bed. Opposite her, Red was already up on all fours and fully alert.

“ _Hurry!”_ Yuffie called again, and Aeris heard the note of alarm in her voice. She grabbed her staff and her jacket on her way to wrenching the door open. Yuffie had already started back up the path to the central car, all lit up inside despite the hour. Red followed close behind and Aeris after him, ignoring the knot in her stomach.

Everyone else had already gathered there, and all of them were crowded around the chair where Jessie sat slumped, blood dripping from her mangled right arm down onto the floor. Too much blood. And not enough flesh left over. Barret knelt in the pooling red next to her, Yuffie leaning across her to help him tie a tourniquet in place. Standing nearby, Sephiroth cast another Cure. Jessie groaned and shifted in the chair as the magic moved through her, treating the rest of her wounds as much as the gaping one in her forearm.

The Cure Aeris had with her was weak, and she’d had far less time to attune it, but she rushed forward to help with the healing anyway. Finished with his work, Barret shifted to her front, looking Jessie in the eyes as he braced his hand gently against her shoulder.

“You’re gonna be alright, Jessie, we got you. We’re takin’ care of you. Okay?” She managed a nod, and Barret continued. “Tell us what happened out there.”

Her breath was ragged, but she delivered the news through gritted teeth. 

“They’re… They’re going to drop the plate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> despite all his rage he is still just a rat in a cage
> 
> Thank you Nautilusopus and la_regina_scrive for beta reading, and shout out to reader JamesFirecat who has caught a few of my post-publication mistakes the past few chapters. It's appreciated!


	11. Stumbling at the Precipice

This time, Aeris wasn’t running for her life. Her heart pounded hard in her ears, harder than her boots pounded against the gravel. She had realized something, sitting in that dim train car, as Jessie bled onto the floor and the dawning horror of what was about to happen washed over all of them: She was the only one who didn’t _need_ to run for her life — the only one who could run for everyone else’s lives instead.

The sound of rotors approaching pricked her ears just as she made it to a stretch of crooked fencing. With a stitch in her side and her lungs burning for air, Aeris scanned the skyline and found what she was after. One helicopter peeled off from the others on their way to the Sector 7 pillars. They’d begun sweeping the district. Her best shot at being found would be on the border of Sector 6, but first she needed the breath to run there. The metal fence creaked as she looped her fingers through the chain link and doubled over to catch it.

"Aeris?”

She looked up through the diamond mesh to discover she’d been caught by the wrong man. Approaching from the other side of the fence was Sephiroth, the surprise on his face battling consternation. Internally, Aeris cursed his silence and swiftness. He wasn’t supposed to come this way. None of them were, which was the whole point of using this route to begin with.

“You shouldn’t be here. You were meant to help with the evacuation."

"I know, I know.” Shaking her head, she planted the end of her staff in the gravel and leaned against it to bear her up. When she forced her eyes to Sephiroth’s, they were burning in a way that told her that consternation had won out.

“There’s no _time_ —”

“Tseng will be looking for me,” she interrupted, certain that her eyes were burning back. “Or— or someone from the Turks. They’ve got to be here. And I'm going to talk some sense into them."

He paused at that, and she watched as in the space of a few seconds, surprise battled its way back from the brink, this time with an edge of severity to it.

"You can’t be serious."

"Dead serious,” she countered, “Maybe I can get them to stop all this."

"They won't listen to you,” he said flatly, impatience rising in his voice.

"I’m the only one they don’t want to crush into jelly, so I’m the only one they _might_ listen to!"

“Might? Might.” He let out another of those mirthless laughs, and this time she heard the fury behind it. “I don’t understand. You were too afraid of your own freedom to leave when presented the chance, but you'll run off alone without a word to risk it all over again on ' _might_.'” He leaned closer to the fence, closer to her, impressing his indignation with every syllable. “Aeris, listen to me. If they find you, they will not hear you out. They will march you, at gunpoint, back to the labs. They will put you under glass again. You are playing directly into their hand.”

“But all the people of Sector 7—”

"Will be killed regardless,” he snapped, “and are far less important than you are to begin with."

"What? How can you _say_ that?!" 

"Because it's the truth. You are Cetran."

"That doesn't mean anything! There are so many people living here, and all being Cetran means right now is that I might be able to do something when no one else can!"

"Do you really believe that obligates you? You rate your worth below them, to throw yourself on the pyre so readily."

"It's not about that, it's not about throwing myself on anything! But if I'm the only one who can help everyone—"

“Do you owe everyone your suffering, to try and spare them theirs?” he demanded. "Do you owe them your freedom?”

“I— no, but—”

"Then _don’t do this_.” The fence rattled as he placed his hand against the chain link and curled his fingers in toward her. “You are giving yourself up for _nothing_.”

“I… I have to try,” she answered through clenched teeth. “Tseng… Tseng could listen to me. He _knows_ me. And no matter what you say, I have to try!”

Aeris’ nose nearly brushed the metal of the fence for how close she had come to it, one her hands curled tightly in it, near to his. On the other side, Sephiroth was looking hard at her. He was gravely quiet, in the way that he had been quiet in the gardens, thinking through their impasse in a way that seemed to make it manifest. It stretched out and sparked precariously between them while she stood her ground and he came to a decision. At first she expected him to argue again. When he dropped his eyes from hers, she knew, with a strange deflated feeling, that he wasn't going to.

“Do you still have my materia?” he asked, eyeing her staff for the glittering green Aero she had used in their escape. “Use it.”

“Really? They’re a lot stronger than me,” Aeris answered doubtfully, turning the staff in her grip.

“Resist them anyway,” he said simply. “As I said, you are Cetran. Remember it — and remind them.”

Aeris drew her thumb over the glassy green materia, the ghost of a breeze at her fingertips as she grazed the stone's surface. The strength of the Cetra. She never lacked for certainty once her mind was made up, but her strength as a Cetra... He said it with such conviction, she almost envied him. Maybe the difference was that all his past resistance had taken him somewhere. When she looked up again, he fixed her with a look to match the gravity of his tone, then took a step back from the fence.

"... I need to clear the exit, or we'll all be trapped in here."

"Okay,” she nodded. “I'll see you at the exit... with everyone else!"

It wasn’t likely. She knew that. Still, Aeris told herself to believe, then told herself again, loud enough to drown out the voice in the back of her mind whispering that she was making a mistake.

* * *

Sephiroth’s focus was elsewhere. From automatic memory built through evenings of staring at maps of Midgar, he sped onward toward the Sector 7 gate, weaving along the route that would bring him there. Focus wasn’t required for navigation, but its absence was troubling for all the other things it let rattle around in his mind. He could sense the “bonfire” was here, and he expected to find him guarding the gate, corralling citizens and terrorists alike in. A fight was inevitable, and he needed to be sharp. Instead, his mind was on the little light flickering on the horizon, ready to go out.

Perhaps he shouldn't have relented. Aeris’ plan would buy them some time, but it was rash and foolish and doomed to failure. The best he could hope to come from it was that she would finally learn and accept that Shinra was a wound that could only be treated with fire. He supposed that perhaps when the worst came to pass, they could repeat the interlude of their first meeting, and this time he might eliminate Rufus while helping her reclaim her freedom. The thought left him surprisingly cold. Asking him to leave Midgar the night before, she had seemed so earnest and eager. Why would she throw herself back into the jaws of the beast at the first opportunity? Who knew how they might chew through her even if he managed to find her again.

He told himself that she was stubborn, and that she had initially resisted coming along with him at every turn anyway, and that it would have only been an unwelcome insistence if he had pressed the issue any further. None of it let him shake the feeling that he had let something important slip through his fingers.

The closer he came to the city’s exit, the less he could afford to think about it. The others had been quick about spreading the word and the crowd was beginning to throng on the path. They moved all as one body toward the gate, until they reached a certain point where they came to a standstill. Sephiroth pushed forward to the front, through panicked families and crying neighbours all watching the gate in horror and disbelief. They murmured louder and parted around him as he wound through them deftly, the Masamune held ready in his hand doing most of the work of getting them out of the way. 

There was no surprise at what he saw when he made it to the front - the illustrious Zero-SOLDIER, flanked by roboguards and standing in front of the locked gate. His stance showed no sign of injury as he readied his sword. Sephiroth rolled his shoulder. Fully functional, no spark of pain, but higher odds of complications if the injury could be repeated so soon after the fact. The same would be true for Cloud. He was watching him, facing him, waiting for him to step boldly out from the crowd surrounding him and enter the semicircle kept clear by the roboguards.

Standing among the shelter of the crowd, Sephiroth smirked as he honed his focus. 

A jagged chunk of earth erupted from the ground, catching Cloud around the middle as it jutted into the air. The Quake materia in Masamune’s hilt went dim as the spell ended, the crowd scattering backward from Sephiroth. Their cover had provided enough of an advantage. He rushed forward through the stragglers, ready with blasts of fire for the roboguards as they rushed in at him from either side. A decisive swipe of Masamune left them shattered and smoking, clearing his path to where Cloud had been thrown and was pulling back to his feet.

He managed to stagger into a defensive position in time to counter, but Sephiroth could see that he already had him on the back foot. Judging from his composure, so could Cloud. With rising surety, Sephiroth evaded ice and lightning and the glimmer of Cloud’s blade that forecasted the beam that followed, keeping up the pressure of his early advantage in between. Metal met metal, scraping and scintillating. He turned the Masamune and caught the full weight of the Buster sword against the flat of it.

Cloud grit his teeth on the other side of their locked blades. Sephiroth could feel the weight of the effort in his shoulder and felt himself give one inch, and then another. That he was beginning to buckle didn’t matter by now. He could see what was next written plainly in Cloud’s face. He thought he was _winning_ , that digging his boots into the earth and forcing him back in a contest of strength counted for anything at all. It gave Sephiroth all the time he needed to covertly draw power from his Earth materia and hammer another spike of hard rock directly into Cloud’s injured side. 

The force of it shot him back against the gate, and while he struggled to right himself again with a hand clutched to his side, Sephiroth drew Masamune’s point through the dirt on either side. Fire sprang up from the earth where it touched, two walls of it that trammelled Cloud in on three sides and left him facing the point of Sephiroth’s blade on the fourth. His shoulders were rounded with exhaustion. He barely managed to pull the broad of his sword in front of him for cover as Sephiroth shot a plume of flame at him with a cruel laugh.

Even with Aeris gone, even with the world about to collapse around him, at least there would still be Shinra blood for his blade.

* * *

With one arm raised, Aeris shielded her face from the rush of air as the helicopter touched down. The wind from its rotors raised the dust from the ground and tugged at her hair and skirts even as the engine died away. When she lowered her arm and squinted through what was left of the dervish, there was Tseng, stepping out of the open passenger carriage, ducking under the rotors, and smoothing down the front of his suit jacket with leather gloved hands, as impassive as ever.

Aeris guarded herself against the relief of seeing him here. They would be talking business and she would need her wits about her. She planted her staff in the ground and stood as straight as the metal rod as he approached her. His expression did not bode well for the outcome of their conversation, but Aeris repeated to herself all the reasons she was standing here - chief among them, that no one else could be.

“I’m glad to see you’re unharmed, Aeris,” he greeted her crisply, as though he had run into her just outside of the labs. “Let’s get you back to safety.”

“Of course I’m unharmed,” she snapped. The sense of relief at seeing him evaporated into memories of their last conversation, along with the composure she had been trying to summon. Her next question bubbled out of her unbidden. “Did you know about Sephiroth? That he’s an Ancient, like me?”

Tseng said nothing, and it dug into Aeris deeper.

“You must have,” she frowned. “What was it you said? ‘Reason to believe’ that if he knew about _me_ … But why would you keep that from me?”

“It was classified,” he answered flatly. “I don’t see how it changes anything.”

“It changes— _everything!_ ” she spluttered. “I know you can’t really be that ignorant! How long have we known each other, Tseng? And how — how many times have you tried to help me to bear it? By telling me it was a gift? You _knew_.” She stabbed at him with her final accusation like a dagger. “You _knew_ how lonely it was. And… you kept locking me up anyway.”

Tseng said nothing, looking down at her with mastered stoicism. She tore her eyes away from his before she could start speculating on whether she’d caught a flicker of something behind them. She hadn’t meant to say any of it, not the last bit especially, and an unhelpful lump appeared in her throat as soon as the words had jumped out. The hard metal of the staff grounded her again when she squeezed her hand around it, shaking her head and pushing the thought away before she could dwell on it.

“Listen, none of this matters right now. Tseng, what are you _doing_? You _have_ to stop them before they do something terrible.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I _know_ ,” she said, stepping forward, one hand a fist against her chest. “I know Shinra is trying to drop the plate, to get back at Avalanche.”

“Get in the helicopter, Aeris,” Tseng commanded, a chill in his voice.

“I won’t! You have to put a stop to this! Please, Tseng, you have to!” She reached out and unfurled her hand to take hold of his forearm, her eyes round and pleading. “I’ll come along with you, if you just do something — _please!_ ”

“You’ll come along anyway, and neither of us have the time to stand here and argue,” he said, pulling his arm sharply from her grip. His voice quieted and his eyes softened in a familiar, terrible way that made Business Tseng blur into the regular one, that made her doubt there was really any distinction at all. 

“Aeris. Don’t make me force you.”

As she pulled her staff slowly, protectively, across her body, a flood of memory flashed through her mind. Every little kindness he had done for her - sneaking her sweets when she was still just a kid, and her “first” sip of alcohol when she was of age, carrying her bags on escorted shopping trips and tailoring her keycard to give her nighttime access to her favourite vending machines, even looking the other way all the times they’d crossed paths when she was out on a normal teenaged date with Zack. The memory of Sephiroth’s warning shot through all of the others like a bullet.

“But you will,” she said.

Tseng wore his gun concealed under his jacket, but Aeris knew where to look for it. She knew exactly what he was doing as he reached for it in one smooth, swift motion, and recognized the sight of its dark barrel held a scarce few feet from her face.

The grip on her staff loosened as Aeris smiled sadly, that lump in her throat back with a vengeance.

“Of course you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Nautilusopus and la_regina_scrive for betaing.


	12. Leap of Faith

With his back pressed against the gate out of Sector 7, Cloud spat blood onto the burning earth. His boots scraped against the dirt as he tried to force his injured body back into a fighting stance, his grip redoubling on the hilt of the Buster Sword. The baleful glow of his eyes joined the firelight in the reflection of Masamune’s blade as Sephiroth raised it higher, laughter in his throat. Time was scarce. In the end the Zero-SOLDIER’s death would be fleeting. Nevertheless, some victories demanded to be savoured.

“The hell are you laughing at?” Cloud boomed, the fight alive in his spirit if lapsed in his body. “What is _wrong_ with you? You used to protect these people! I didn’t think you were so far gone that you’d go around slaughtering _civilians_ but it looks like you get a kick out of it, huh? Come on then, bastard.”

“Attacking civilians?” he echoed, more amusement in his tone than he felt in actuality. Was this Cloud’s idea of trying to bait him? He never had been very good at it. “What is it that you think is happening?”

“You and your goddamn terror cell are going to attack the slums!”

He didn’t know. 

Foolish, simple Cloud. So willing to throw himself into the same hellish war that Sephiroth himself had been tempered by, so willing to pick up his old mantle after it had been carefully re-branded to make for palatable propaganda. So willing to set aside the skein of lies he’d glimpsed in Nibelheim, and still naive enough to accept new ones. He had the audacity to face him down with incandescent rage on behalf of all the people Shinra was about to have summarily murdered just for a chance at stopping him. All the people he so clearly wanted to protect.

He ought to know, and Sephiroth was not one to brook Shinra lies.

“The attack you’ve been warned about isn’t ours. Shinra is planning to drop the plate over this sector in retaliation for the President’s assassination and the reactor bombing.”

Cloud’s stance faltered, his eyes going wide.

“You’re lying!”

In the blink of an eye, Sephiroth lashed forward with Masamune, carving a gash into Cloud’s arm before he had the chance to move or react. He kept the sword poised between them, having made his point in blood.

“I don’t need to,” Sephiroth smirked. “If you listen, you can hear the gunfire carrying from the pillar. I know your ears should be sharp enough to pick it up.”

Cloud clenched his jaw and refused to react through the warning shot, blood running through the fingers he had clapped over his arm. Despite the defiance in his face, he had gone quiet, and for long enough that Sephiroth could tell he was listening closely.

“If the plate falls, that’s…” Cloud spoke slowly and shook his head, faces and numbers running through them, “That’s hundreds of thousands of people, just here in the slums.”

“You’ve probably been sent here with orders to prevent any of them from leaving, under the pretext of stopping anyone who harboured us. Correct?”

Cloud said nothing, and stared back more hateful than ever.

“I thought as much,” Sephiroth raised Masamune again. He was willing to wait for Cloud’s reaction to the truth before he struck him down for good. The younger man lowered his blade but not his gaze, clearly wrestling with it even as Sephiroth awaited his vindication.

With a heavy thud, Cloud let his sword fall to the ground.

“Let me go and I’ll stop them,” said Cloud.

Sephiroth stopped. He drew back, looking incredulously from Cloud’s determined expression to the Buster Sword laying at his feet and back again. What was he doing? Was this a game, a trick, a distraction? Could he possibly be asking this of him in earnest? As Cloud continued, his suspicions closed in on the least comfortable option.

“You can open the gate, start evacuating,” pleaded Cloud with open, empty hands, “and I’ll buy as much time as I can. We can _do something_ about this. Please, just let me go and help.”

This was wrong. Sephiroth glared down the length of the blade at the man standing unarmed at the other end of it. By rights he should pick his borrowed sword back up from the ground, he should scream and charge and die at the end of Masamune the way that he was meant to from the moment he had first raised his blade to Sephiroth, years ago. Instead Cloud stood with hanging arms and open palms and a face that awaited judgment. He lowered his sword a fraction of an inch and considered how he would deliver it.

The consequences of the plate falling were not a small matter. Even now, Sephiroth was keenly aware of the mass of Midgar’s citizenry gathered anxiously at his back, and those were the ones lucky enough to have made it here. Aeris would not be able to convince anyone to save them, much less Tseng, the very image of a Turk. Of that he was certain. But the Zero-SOLDIER… Cloud… might have his own devices. And from the thrust of all his incessant barking, he might also still have enough of a soul left to try to exercise them.

He bought more time.

“Oh? You’d take my word? You’d turn your back on Shinra?”

“No, I wouldn’t. But this is too many lives to risk.”

A tongue of fury’s flame licked at him. Avalanche, himself, Aeris, all the people swarming the gate - they would survive. And they would fight on. More lives would be lost from the fall of the plate, yes, but they had to be weighed against all of the lives already lost to Shinra, and those yet to be claimed, all crying out in unison for vengeance. Who was to say they didn’t deserve it? To let him go would be to let _Shinra_ go.

“You’d have me allow you to return to being their puppet-soldier? To let _them_ go back to extracting the blood of the Planet, while you extract the blood of the resistance?” He shot forward with the Masamune again, felt it tear easily through Cloud's flesh in a vicious strike at his right shoulder, exactly where Sephiroth's wound had been. He noticed a slight, infuriating tremor in the sword as he brought it level with Cloud's heart. Through the pain and the indignity, Cloud held himself still as stone, and Sephiroth raged on. “Why?! Why are you asking this of me?”

“Who else am I supposed to ask?” Cloud answered through gritted teeth, trails of red running down both of his arms. “You’re the one who can choose.”

Enlisting Cloud’s help, or collecting his due. Sephiroth set the scales with his options and measured them again, then again, finding them maddeningly even each time. More vexing still was that Cloud had set this decision in front of him to begin with. The way forward had been clear. It lay across Cloud’s lifeless body and culminated in Shinra’s ruin. His road had been set, and he had never expected that a new path would open.

A new path. He heard the words again in Aeris’ quiet, questioning voice, and pressed the fingers of his free hand to his brow. Through the gaps in his fingers, he studied Cloud again, the flames on either side of him guttering in the wind. How sudden, how strange that this should happen now. As uncanny as her sea of flowers.

Gradually, with eyes still burning, he lowered his hand.

Then, he lowered his sword.

The two of them shared a sense of disbelief at what was happening between them, even as Sephiroth brought the walls of fire down to embers with a wave of his hand. Once he sensed he had leave to move, Cloud immediately turned to the gate and began the process of unlocking it. Sephiroth stared daggers at his back as the locking mechanism came undone in a chorus of grinding metal. 

“Are your people trying to stop this?” Cloud asked, kneeling down for his sword. “Have you got anyone near the main support pillar?”

“Of course,” Sephiroth replied stiffly.

“Tell them — tell them that dropping the whole plate probably relies on detonating existing charges. I think they’ll be at the sub-supports, they’ve got maintenance panels there. You might be able to disable them, or disconnect them if you can get up to the plate. But they stationed roboguards by them, as a precaution, they said… Shit.” A string of muttered curses continued as Cloud turned away from the gate and cast a Cure spell, letting the magic wash over him, repeating the process once he was done. He was standing a little straighter already as he replaced the sword on his back.

As he passed Sephiroth, he shot him a look of pure malice. 

“Hey. You’re still a bastard, and the next time we meet, I’m finishing it.”

Sephiroth let out a bark of laughter. That, at least, was pleasantly familiar.

“I look forward to seeing you try.”

As Cloud rocketed off into the depths of the sector, Sephiroth wrenched open the gate and moved swiftly out of the way. With the fighting ended and the fire gone, a flood of people rushed forward and flowed through to safety. Away from the crowd, he scanned the landscape for the pillar’s sub-supports while he waited for Barret to pick up on the other end of the PHS.

“You got info?!” Barret repeated after him, staccato bursts of gunfire backgrounding his voice. 

As Sephiroth relayed Cloud’s information back to the Avalanche members on the other end of the line, a helicopter rising from the border of Sector 6 caught his eye.

* * *

The helicopter lurched as it ascended toward the metal sky. In its open cabin, with the air rushing through on both sides, Aeris clutched her staff like a prayer. It scraped against the metal floor as the black-gloved hand above her white-knuckled ones wrenched it further away from her. With eyes full with fear and the sound of gunfire echoing in the distance, she looked up into Tseng’s face, unyielding as the cold metal in her hands.

“Let go,” Tseng warned, and didn’t wait for her to comply. He separated her roughly from the staff, one wrist after the other, and forced her by the shoulders into her seat as though she were a child fussing during a long trip. She rubbed her wrists where his grip had bruised them and read the meaningful look in his dark eyes as he set the staff on the ground opposite her, just out of her reach. Satisfied with her silent compliance, Tseng turned his attention to the rising chaos in the slums below, while Aeris turned hers to her newly empty hands.

She wished she could say that she couldn’t believe what was happening. That even Shinra wouldn’t kill hundreds of thousands in pursuit of a pyrrhic victory. That Tseng would look the other way. That even if he took her back into custody, she wouldn’t come away from her plea completely empty-handed. That she wasn’t sitting still in her seat through it all. Her hands curled into fists in her lap. The truth was that it was all believable. Predictable, even. The only differences between what was happening now and what she’d witnessed a thousand, thousand times before were speed and scale.

As her hands slowly unclenched she felt like she could see through them, down to the swell of people flowing through the slums, each of their lives about to be snuffed out. Maybe she was imagining it, but their screams of grief and fear seemed to rise over the roar of the wind through the cabin. The sound buried itself in her chest, coiled around her sinking heart. It wasn’t only for all those lives lost, a great bleeding of the vast ocean below her, but also for herself. Maybe it would have been better if she had never run at all. Back in the gardens, she had been in the middle of making peace with it, hadn’t she? Peace with going back to Midgar, staying in the labs for a few months more before she saw her mom and her church garden and reached out to send a message to her mother that stood any chance at being heard. It all would have been fine, just what she was used to. She had been ready for it, until…

Aeris looked up. A shaft of light reached into the shadow of the opposite wall and caught on the silver of her staff. She traced the gleam with her eyes to where it swirled off the green Aero materia in one of its slots.

Her head snapped up as Tseng barked orders into his PHS, his fingers pressed against his earpiece. He rose from the seat adjacent to her and braced his hand against the door, his back to her now. The wind caught his jacket and lifted it away from where his gun was holstered, black and ominous. Aeris looked from the staff to the gun as a thought rang sharp and sudden through her.

How dare he?

How could he do this to her, over and over again? Fury echoed through her, drove her to her feet, each injustice boiling up inside her like bubbles rising and popping. How much had Shinra taken from her? Her flesh and her blood and years of her life and any chance she had to live it normally, with a heart full of hope for the future. Both her mother and her father. And the truth, that she wasn’t the only one out there with an identity she’d never been given a chance to understand, that it could be understood at all as something other than an engine for war and profit. None of it was okay, however much everyone else accepted it. And how dare _she_ believe them enough to come running right back into one of their cages?

But they hadn’t shut the bars around her just yet.

Tseng turned as he heard the scrape of metal on metal, too slow to stop her. With her staff firmly in her hands, her thumb running over the surface of the whispering Aero materia, she planted herself at the opposite side of the cabin and stared him down. In a single fluid motion, Tseng drew the gun and levelled it at her chest, meeting her eyes down the barrel. 

“Sit _down_ , Aeris!”

The materia hummed under her fingers, and she drew in strength as much as magic. Cetran strength. The corners of Aeris’ lips quirked upwards into a smile.

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Tseng’s eyes widened. He lunged towards her, the gun forgotten, his hand outstretched in desperation. The tips of his fingers grazed the end of her braid, just beyond his grasp. For a fleeting moment, she saw true fear etched into his face, which faded rapidly into the distance as she leapt backwards from the helicopter out into the rushing air.

Falling happened a lot faster than she had expected it to.

Fear and exhilaration rushed through her as surely as the wind rushed past her. She told herself she could do this. Then, with her eyes squeezed shut and a prayer in her heart, she told the Planet. Holding fast to her staff, she swept her arm out below her in an arc and cast the strongest Aero she could muster toward the ground. 

When the lift of the updraft caught her, she couldn't help but laugh. It had worked. Thank everything, it had worked, and the power in that knowledge coursed through her like a current. The wind carried her body as high as it could and she let out a cheer at its zenith as for just a moment, her own blissful weightlessness eclipsed all else. Then, she grit her teeth against gravity and got to work. 

She started sinking towards the earth again sooner than she expected. Internally repeating her gratitude to the Planet, she cut another arc behind her with her staff, the resulting gust of wind spinning her in circles as it carried her forward, closer to the gate and to her escape. As the bottom fell out of her stomach, she found the ground and started the process again. Up, over, find the ground, watch as it rushed closer, and wonder how far there was left to fall and wonder whether the well of magic in her would hold out as long as her grit.

Her head was starting to spin from more than just the dizziness. Though she had used powerful materia before in training, it had never been for such a sustained effort, much less under such dire circumstances. The air blasts were getting weaker, struggling to bear her up. She’d have to let herself plummet for longer and save her strength for a final updraft to keep her off the ground, but it was so hard to tell how far the ground _was_ exactly, much less what else she was heading for. 

Holding her breath, she let herself fall as long as she could stand, waiting for the last possible moment to unleash all the magic she had drawn into her. The last moment didn’t come. Instead, she hit something.

Something softer than earth or concrete, something with a slightly fuzzy texture. It collided with her and sent her sailing into something _else_ , not quite as soft but still far from bone-crunching rock. She realized dimly that the something was a person, who wrapped their arms tight around her middle and held her securely against them until the rushing wind had stopped. From the way her stomach returned to where it was supposed to be, she suspected she might not be falling anymore, even though everything was still spinning.

Carefully, the catcher lowered the both of them to the ground. He unwound his arms slowly, released his hold of her, and braced two gloved hands firmly on her shoulders while she waited for the world to stop circling. When it did, she found herself looking at Sephiroth, a wholly new variety of consternation drawn across his face. Really, he looked only slightly less alarmed than Red, who peered in worriedly over his shoulder.

“I’m okay,” she managed faintly, pressing one hand to her head and waiting for that to be completely true so she could stand up again.

“You’re—” Sephiroth began, but did not complete his assessment. Aeris had started grinning at him, her face alight with the devious and insuppressible joy that came when you were still buzzing from the adrenaline of jumping out of a helicopter. He shook his head dismissively, as though it were too ridiculous to respond to, but she caught him smiling to himself, too.

“We have to run,” reminded Red in more patient tones than the situation allowed for. Sephiroth nodded to him, sliding his hands away from Aeris’ shoulders and offering one of them to help her up instead. She took it, helping herself up on her staff as well. The dizziness hadn’t quite faded.

“My plan didn’t work,” Aeris puffed, and Sephiroth gave her an incredulous look, but to his credit, said nothing. “We got a plan B?”

“Indeed,” said Sephiroth. “Barret and Yuffie are carrying it out, but we’re nearly out of time.”

As soon as she was able, Aeris seized him by the wrist to pull him into a run as they spoke.

“Then let’s hurry!”

* * *

Cloud ran at a tear, faster than was possible for any normal human, faster even than most of his best records in the labs. His arms were slick with blood and his side pained him in a way that made him think they’d be cutting him open later to fix whatever was wrong inside, but he didn’t care. Couldn't care, not right now. The only thing that mattered was the address Tifa had given him over the phone the other day. Avcoor and Selnate, she’d said, but the streets under the plate didn’t share the same names - he’d have to find it by memory and proximity alone.

“Report,” demanded Tseng’s voice over the PHS.

“I’m in pursuit of Sephiroth,” lied Cloud. “They’ve made it to the outskirts and clear of Sector 7.”

This was all a plan to crush Sephiroth, right? If he was already gone, then maybe they’d call the whole thing off - if any of his story was even true to begin with. Cloud ignored Tseng’s ire on the other end of the line as he reached the support pillar and tore back the fencing protecting the maintenance ladder with his own hands, skipping up it four rungs at a time and hoping desperately he had the location right. Close enough that the spike of his hair could scrape the plate, he reached into it to rip out a handful of wiring, gritting his teeth through the nasty shock it sent coursing through him. 

He slid down the ladder, hit the ground from twenty feet up and kept running to the adjacent one. It was around here somewhere. He just had to disable as many as he could. 

“We have eyes.” 

He was at the top of the fourth ladder, leaning out of view of a chopper, when Tseng’s voice crackled through the speaker again. “Sephiroth and the Ancient are fleeing the Sector. What’s your position? We need to extract you.

“Why?” demanded Cloud.

“Avalanche has left charges at the Sector 7 pillar. It’s too late to disarm them before they detonate. We need to evacuate.”

Could that be true? Avalanche had strong enough charges to blow a reactor, but then why hadn’t they been caught earlier, when he’d heard the raining gunfire and spotted the helicopters circling? Even knowing the truth, Cloud bargained with it. Were they really going to go through with it anyway, knowing Sephiroth would slip free? Why? So many people in the slums and above the plate were going to die. Just for Sephiroth. Just for the one mission he had never managed to complete.

Cloud let another fistful of useless wire fall to the ground, his stomach sinking down with it.

“Okay,” he said.

* * *

The ground was shaking. It woke Tifa up even before the piercing shriek of the fire alarm. The acrid scent of smoke and something metallic hit her nostrils as soon as she’d pulled herself up out of bed. Bolting out of the futon and into her boots, she dashed across the room to snatch her gloves and her wallet. She had just wrenched the door open when the building shuddered violently under her. 

She was on the ground again before she knew it, and felt as much as heard the debris from the roof collapsing in. It fell in chunks and slabs and the drywall dust stung her eyes and dove into her lungs when she screamed. A piece of debris struck her in the leg, a smaller one in the temple, and a slab that would have surely crushed her missed her by inches. Next to the door, Tifa curled into a ball and waited for the world to stop shaking. It fell in around her instead. 

The collapse stopped as suddenly as it had started. At the end of it she was alone in the dark with her ears ringing out the sound of her panicked breath. There was light above her, in between the collapsed slabs of concrete - light enough that she could probably slip through. Her hands were shaking when she braced them against the edge of the nearest block. Lifting herself up and twisting through the crack took minutes, but each of them stretched out to fill hours in her terror. 

Out on the other side of the collapse, she sunk her face into her dusty hands with a dry sob, but coached herself back to her feet as soon as she had her breath. She had to keep going. Crouched low, she crossed the collapse until she reached the edge. She had to get back to solid ground. 

It turned out that thirty feet out from where she stood, there was no ground anymore.

In the place of it was a multi-story drop into fire and twisted metal. The fault line followed the linear patterns of the plate’s segments; everything to the north of where she stood, frantically trying to make sense of what had happened, was still intact. From the south she could hear screams rising out of the pit.

She didn’t remember how it was that she managed to climb down into it. She lost count of the corpses she passed over as she picked over the crush of steel and concrete for survivors with a lump in her throat and a numbness in the rest of her body. She also didn’t know how many people she’d pulled from the rubble or how many mangled beams she strained to lift out of the way. All she knew was that her hands were raw when Cloud’s appeared suddenly and closed around them.

He told her later that she’d still been crying when he finally managed to wrest her away from the wreckage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Act I comes to a close!
> 
> Thanks so much to la_regina_scrive and Nautilusopus for helping me clean up this chapter, and to everybody who's read so far.


	13. Futile Heroics

Cloud straightened out over the sick bucket and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His stomach lurched. By now his insides felt hollow and distended, and despite the churning, he wasn't sure he had anything left in him. It turned out that he didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from retching anyway. He ignored the rasp in his breath as he staggered up, his muscles burning from the effort, and dragged himself across the few feet that separated his single cot from the small desk against the opposite wall. Too small. About the same size as the last desk he’d seen in school. He resented still being able to fit at it.

Write, they told him. After a year, his motor function was shaky, not to mention his speech processing, and writing would help with both. He had to write. They told him to write.

The sleek black fountain pen was the same as the kind Hojo carried around in his breast pocket. It felt heavy and luxurious and extremely out of place, both in the sparse, windowless room that served as his quarters and in Cloud’s pale shaking hand. He stared at the blank page, then at how thin his wrists had become since his last memory of stepping into the tank, and then back at the page again with some effort.

Letters had been the suggestion, and after a year of radio silence, they were probably due.

He started with one to Mom, even though she wouldn’t be able to read it. This one was disappointingly short: _Hello, I hope you are well and happy, I am fine, please don’t worry, I will write again, I love you, Cloud._ It got the important things across without really saying anything at all, which was about all he was comfortable with for something that a stranger would have to read aloud. If they could read his writing, anyway. He looked down at the scratchy, crooked letters disapprovingly and wrote them out again, slower this time, thinking that maybe it would be better that she couldn’t see them.

The pen clattered to the table, leaving a blot of ink in its wake, and Cloud fumbled to pick it back up. Once he had it, it was a struggle not to whip it against the concrete, though he knew that right now he still lacked the strength for it to even be satisfying. Besides, Hojo would be angry about the pen.

Write. They told him to write. He’d never be able to manage the sword Zack left him if he couldn’t even write. He thought of writing to Zack and abandoned the idea immediately, wanting nothing from a letter he couldn’t send. But who else was there?

He thought back to Nibelheim and found himself remembering the water tower, and a starry night full of promise.

Three years. One for him, actually. Tifa probably wouldn’t even remember him. Maybe it was better that way.

He put the pen to the paper again and made sure his writing was neat.

* * *

Despite the dead of night, the Shinra building’s medical ward was abuzz with activity. Doctors and interns alike hurried between patients, laid out on makeshift bedding stationed haphazardly throughout the ward. Most were infantrymen, and most were being treated for gunshot wounds, stab wounds, and lacerations. A handful had injuries consistent with having been mauled by a wild animal. Some had also suffered injury from falling debris when the plate had collapsed. Not many, though. Most of those who had been there when it fell were still out there, dead or suffocating under the rubble.

Cloud burst into the fray directly from the elevator, one arm draped protectively around Tifa’s shoulders.

“Hey! She needs an exam,” he demanded of no one in particular. One of the perks of fame was that you could walk into places and demand things of no one in particular, and they’d mistake the rising panic in your voice for authority and come over to help. Normally he didn’t care for the insincere appeasements, but with Tifa next to him, white from the dust except for where she’d been bleeding from her injuries, he would take whatever form of help he could get.

This time it came in the form of an exhausted-looking orderly, who sighed sharply into her mask as she approached them.

“Civilian, right?” she said after one look at Tifa, who was staring unfixed at the floor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Strife, she needs to go to the hospital.”

“They’re all packed, and with triage no one’ll see her ‘til who knows when,” Cloud protested, “She was on the plate near the collapse, somebody needs to— check her out for a concussion or shock or — just make sure she’s alright.”

“I’m fine, Cloud,” Tifa croaked at his side, a permutation of the only thing she’d uttered in the hour that he’d been with her.

“No, you’re not,” he balked, before turning back to the orderly. “Can you fit her in? It’ll be quick.”

“I—”

“There you are,” came a cool voice, announced by the click of polished dress shoes on the tile. Cloud turned to see Tseng approaching and knew immediately what he would say before he said it. “You were supposed to report in. Where were you?”

Tseng had never been an easy read. If he did have any emotions, he had made a profession out of cutting them away with surgical precision and hiding them somewhere the world would never find them. Meanwhile, Cloud’s arced and crackled in his chest, Tseng’s poise only adding to the electricity. A death toll in the tens of thousands all at once and the most Tseng showed for it was the faint and routine irritation of having to wrangle a SOLDIER back into line.

“Is something the matter?” Tseng asked.

“Cloud—” 

He pulled his hand away from Tifa like it had shocked him. Tifa winced and rubbed her shoulder where his grip had tightened around it.

“Sorry,” he murmured. He pulled his attention away from Tseng, back to the orderly.

“We were looking for survivors,” he explained absently, pretending it was the young woman in scrubs who had demanded his whereabouts. “Please, look after her.”

She opened her mouth to protest again, but Tseng raised a gloved finger in the air to silence her.

“Yes, do look after Ms. Lockhart. She was so recently a part of the Shinra family, after all.” Tseng’s lips quirked upwards into a polite smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. The orderly deflated and wisely gave up the argument as Tseng turned to Cloud instead. “Cloud - a word.”

“... I’ll be right back, Tifa. Hang in there.”

“I’m fine, Cloud,” she repeated, and this time lifted her eyes from the floor. Exhaustion still bled through her voice, but her face was something else entirely. Cloud watched her turn away, his body filling up with the weight of his own uselessness.

“Come along,” Tseng prompted, and Cloud followed him wordlessly to a glass-walled meeting room. With Cloud inside, Tseng shut the door carefully behind him, and rounded on Cloud with none of the gentleness he had shown to the office furniture.

“You disregarded your orders. We’ve been waiting for your report and haven’t heard from you since the evacuation.”

“Yeah, well, like I said,” Cloud muttered, raking a hand through his hair. Tseng frowned at the dust that fell out of it onto the carpet. “We were looking for survivors.”

“It seems to me,” he replied, voice as smooth as the glossy conference table, “that you were attending to personal matters that should not have been in the way of your immediate response.”

Cloud addressed his reply to Tseng’s reflection in the table, as though it would be easier to keep his temper in check if he could avoid looking at the real thing.

“You call trying to help people in the worst disaster in Midgar’s history a 'personal matter?'”

“Well, that is why your _friend_ is here, is it not? In breach of security protocol, no less. Let me remind you that your unique position doesn’t entitle you to do whatever you want.”

“Oh, you want to talk to me about security?” Cloud shot back. “Wasn’t your team on ‘security’ while the President was bleeding out?”

“Indeed,” Tseng answered lightly. “And I believe it was _your_ job to apprehend Sephiroth and Avalanche. Perhaps if you had prevented them dropping the plate, you could have avoided delaying your responsibilities with futile heroics after the fact.”

Cloud tensed as though he had been struck. His jaw might have fallen open if it weren’t clenched so tightly that he thought his teeth might crack. It was a lie, a lie Tseng delivered without so much as a twitch, but the truth in it cut to the quick. He might have struggled to bite back his reply if the door didn’t slide open at just that moment.

“Gentlemen! Good evening - or that’s what I’d like to say,” Reeve sighed as he slid the door shut behind him, offering no apology for his interruption. “How are the both of you holding up? Hopefully your families are well?”

“Director Tuesti,” Tseng said briskly, turning to face him as he pointedly ignored the pleasantries. “What welcome timing. Cloud was just explaining what he was up to while Avalanche was destroying Sector 7.”

Reeve had plainly heard them speaking outside, had plainly stepped in to defuse the situation, and had plainly underestimated Tseng’s dedication to raking Cloud over the coals for his negligence. He grimaced as he followed Tseng’s gaze to Cloud, awaiting his explanation.

“Did you know that was their plan, then? Because it was news to me,” Cloud said, eyeing them both, willing his face to give away no more than he wanted it to. “You were there, Tseng, so how exactly did it happen anyway?”

“I believe you already know. Avalanche set charges at the support pillar and detonated them once they were out of range.”

“What was their objective?” Cloud asked.

“What do you mean? They’re terrorists.”

“Right, but I thought they had an MO. They blew the reactors because they believe in all that spirit energy crap. So what gives? You Turks were at the pillar, weren’t you?”

Tseng paused at that, though it was not an encouraging pause. He seemed to look harder at Cloud, studying him in that appraising and uncomfortable way the Professor often did. Cloud stood straighter, trying not to recoil from the scrutiny, and Tseng smiled in a way that was even less encouraging than his pause.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he said simply. “Although I do wonder… How strange that they pulled the charges from parts of the plate.”

Shit.

“Must’ve been trying to clear an escape route,” Cloud shrugged.

“Perhaps. But you’d expect a particular path in that case. Instead, half the plate is still standing in mostly haphazard sections.”

Cloud folded his arms and said nothing and caught the grave look Reeve was giving him out of the corner of his eye.

"It's certainly a question worth exploring," Reeve offered. "Perhaps they had co-conspirators that—"

“I’m still waiting on that report,” Tseng pressed again, ignoring him entirely. “How did Sephiroth get away?”

“It’s _Sephiroth._ ”

“And the Ancient? You must have seen her on the ground somewhere, once she escaped my custody.”

“I didn’t," Cloud snapped. "Maybe you shouldn’t have lost her.”

“I suppose you would have apprehended her if you had the chance, hm? You _do_ need her around.”

Tseng’s mouth twitched into a knowing smile again, and Reeve stepped into the path of the vicious glare Cloud gave him in return.

“Tonight has been difficult for us all,” Reeve said, hands opened in a gesture of brokering peace to both parties. “But we’re all on the same side, here. Perhaps this conversation would be better postponed until tensions cool.”

“Of course,” Tseng deferred, bowing his head politely to Cloud. When he lifted his head again, he directed the full force of his attention to Reeve instead. “I’m sure it’s been especially difficult for you, Director Tuesti. I heard you spoke with President Rufus recently.”

“... He mentioned that, did he?” Reeve frowned.

“He did. So I’m sure you will join me in reminding Cloud that dedication to this company is paramount.” Reeve’s shoulders seemed to sink, and Tseng peered at Cloud from over one of them. “I’ll be expecting your _detailed_ report later. Good evening.”

With that, Tseng pulled the door open and strode away down the hall, Reeve watching his retreat with solemn consideration. His body seemed to deflate now that he was alone in the room with Cloud, and he shut his eyes as he lifted his hand to his mouth and sighed into it. Tseng's departure had swept one tension out of the room, but Cloud found Reeve's strange interaction with him left another one lingering. 

"What was that?"

Reeve's hand slid down his face and curled into a ball at his side. Somehow, Cloud’s stomach twisted in premonition of what he was about to tell him.

“Shinra dropped the plate.”

* * *

Tifa was, as she had insisted, fine. The examining doctor delivered Cures and pain medication and prescribed rest and ice and fluids and vigilance. All that was wrong with her was an assortment of contusions, particularly deep in the tissue where her leg had been struck and there might be some internal bleeding, and a mild concussion. Perhaps moderate? She couldn't remember, and it didn't matter anyway, because she was alive and so, so, so many people, people who just yesterday had been her new neighbours, were not.

She couldn't get their faces out of her head. Or when she could, she couldn't forget their limbs, sticking out at odd angles from under the rock, when they were intact at all. So many bodies. Some still alive, though you wouldn't know from first looking at them, from the blood painting their faces.

She stared out the window where the fire still raged.

The worst thing she couldn't stop thinking about was her second story walk up. Her shitty studio apartment furnished with nothing but emergency supplies and a new futon and luggage intended for a completely different climate. How long ago had it been that she had stretched herself out on the floor and felt sorry for herself because it wasn't quite what she had wanted? As though she hadn't managed her dream anyway, as though anyone else in Nibelheim or any other dead-end town would have had a shot at a plateside apartment in the first place.

Stupid. So stupid.

"Tifa."

Cloud's voice. He was standing there looking at her the same way he had been all night, with a face full of sympathy and worry that shouldn’t belong to her at all. It was hard to bear. She looked away from it, back out the window.

"Heard you need rest," he continued softly. "I've got a spare bedroom. You can stay with me, or I'll spot you for a hotel or something."

"Bedroom would be good. Thanks." She didn't want to borrow any more of his gil. Intruding felt less rude. Besides, she didn't want to be alone with herself, even if that was selfish.

Cloud nodded and in the reflection on the window, she thought she saw him reaching for her, but assumed she must have imagined it as his hand settled on the seat instead. 

"I can still help," she said firmly. "I'm going back out there tomorrow."

Cloud lowered his head and sat with that for a moment. She braced herself for him to argue, to try to talk her out of it and tell her to take care of herself first. 

"Okay," he said, looking out at the wreckage from over her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cloud and Tifa chapter! We'll be seeing more of them now, given all that's happened, though I'll be trying to keep most chapters mixed-focus. 
> 
> I'll also be slowing my update schedule to two weeks through to the new year, and go back to weekly if I manage to write far enough ahead again.
> 
> Thank you to Nautilusopus for proofreading.


	14. Paths to Go By

“You checked in on her after all. Good.” 

The voice took Sephiroth by surprise. He showed no sign of it as he shut the door of the old house softly behind him and hovered in the shadow of the awning. Barret looked up at him, leaning against the white stucco facade with his arms folded. Although he wasn't used to anyone but his enemies waiting at doors for him, he might have guessed Barret would come here. Kalm was too small for much else to occupy his attention.

“I needed to make sure that she’s in trustworthy hands,” Sephiroth explained, expressionless. “It's important that she’s kept well-hidden as she’s treated.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure she appreciated the visit,” Barret answered dismissively as he pushed off of the wall and stepped out into the midday sunlight. It caught the dark metal of the gun in his arm as he lifted it for his own thoughtful inspection. “She tell you about her plans for it?”

“She shared several ideas for prosthesis, though I wouldn’t call any of them 'plans,'” Sephiroth said. Jessie had clearly not expected his visit, but surprise didn't dampen her enthusiasm. She answered his perfunctory questions with good cheer, and he recalled her animated delight at the prospect of a multi-tool hand that included cable ports and power tools. Still, he had noticed that she kept the stump of her arm hidden under the bedsheets.

“Guess I’m glad her spirit’s stayed strong. But it should never have happened. _This_ wasn’t supposed to happen to anybody else.” Barret’s jaw clenched as he turned the glinting metal of his hand, equal parts steel in his voice now. “And definitely not to anybody I was supposed to be leading, supposed to be looking after. Guess you know what that’s like, don’t you?”

Barret lifted his head, something hopeful behind the hard-eyed look he gave Sephiroth, whose face remained as blank as when he’d walked through the door. Unbidden, he thought back to receiving his first command at fifteen and found he couldn’t remember any of them at all. Not their faces, not their names, and not the wounds that claimed them or how they’d been incurred. What he did remember was that the objectives had been completed and the missions hailed as successful, no matter how fewer in number they were at their conclusion. In his dim recollection, he was both proud and bewildered when they gave him a title and a ceremony after the last member of the squadron was dead, as if there hadn't been any point to them at all.

“Not anymore,” he said, in a gentler version of the truth. Barret snorted anyway.

“Damn, you’re cold.”

He shook his head as Sephiroth looked on with a frown.

“She knew the risks, Barret. She wanted to take them.” Sephiroth looked up to meet his eye. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, I know. It's the damn Shinra's fault,” he said, and let his gun arm fall to his side. “But I gotta live with myself for it anyway.” With his good hand, he clapped Sephiroth on the arm as he passed him by. The gesture of goodbye was beginning to feel more familiar than invasive, and no less disconcerting for the change. As he strode off into the sun, Barret delivered his final thought over his shoulder. “Guess we all do.”

* * *

It was hard to believe how bright things were outside of Midgar. Up in the north, Aeris had first become accustomed to the sunlight. Her first few weeks had been spent avoiding windows and squinting into the white. It had seemed so cold and harsh and bleaching at first. Watching clouds drift across the clear blue sky, she was struck instead by the sun's warmth on her skin, so different from the heat and humidity that permeated the city smog. Her poor flowers. All of them had fought for life even harder than she'd known. 

On the peeling wooden bench next to her, Red had his face turned upward, his good eye squeezed closed and a look of contentment on his muzzle.

"How long did they have you?" she asked. "About three months?"

"Or so."

"Amazing how fast you forget the breeze, isn't it?"

Aeris watched it ripple through his fur and couldn't help herself any longer. Casually as she could, she reached up to stroke her hand through his mane. He blinked, but she saw his tail swaying back and forth behind him - definitely dog - and smiled to herself. Her eye strayed back to the sky, then to the open window of the inn nearby, where the innkeeper was shaking his head at the television stationed behind the reception desk.

The news showed Midgar with pieces missing. The anchor wore a drawn expression as she said something serious and important about it, but Aeris couldn’t hear what. In the background of the shot was a scorched playground - was that really still there, after all this time? - and plumes of smoke billowing up through ominous gaps in the metal sky. All the way to Kalm, she’d looked back over her shoulder with a worried frown to watch the same smoke rising in the distance.

"Everything’s okay, right Red? Mom's coming here, and Tseng would already have gone after her if he was going to. Plus, it'll be harder for them to find us now that we're out here," she paused and swallowed. "In the open."

“Mmhmm,” said Red, his tail still flicking behind him.

“I probably shouldn’t even miss it,” she mused aloud. “It’s not like I don’t know why you hated it. It’s dirty and loud and overwhelming at times. But for me, it was home. And this is the farthest I’ve ever gone from it by choice. And…”

And it hurt, seeing it torn up like this. 

If she still believed that Red couldn’t understand her, she probably would have said that out loud. Instead, she thought of something else to say.

“I don’t really know what to do next.”

It had been a long time since thinking about the future had been anything but a surefire way to invite disappointment. The last time she could remember was back in that playground with Zack, huddled together under the dome, dreaming with the kind of reckless foolishness that only young lovers could muster. At least the plans they made then were the type to be easily doomed by age and experience, rather than by Shinra’s corporate development strategy. Though honestly, that might have had something to do with it, too.

“Aeris,” said Red, lifting his head and looking towards the television. “Isn’t that the girl from the airship?”

“You mean Tifa?” On the grainy screen, a young woman covered in dust strained to pull someone out from under a large piece of rubble. “Tifa!”

* * *

Cloud's house was not a home. Tifa was too dazed to realize this when she first entered the place, but cottoned on when she woke in the early morning and gave herself a tour. The basic facts of his living situation, she knew from casual conversation — that he owned a penthouse condominium and was rarely in Midgar often enough to enjoy it. The facts did not convey the reality. It was sleek, spacious, beautiful, and barren. Cloud clearly spent his time at home ignoring the floor to ceiling windows, the inlaid floors, and all the luxury trim. Instead he had gathered his small collection of personal photos and jarringly kitsch decor around the sofa and its cluttered end tables. She spotted a novelty lamp in his otherwise spartan den and finally decided to ask over the diner breakfast they shared on the marble counter-top.

"Got a work friend, Reeve, who set me up with his agent. The agent said this place was good," Cloud explained in between licking bacon grease off his fingers.

"But why did you buy it?"

"Fridge makes ice," Cloud said with a shrug. "And they said they’d furnish it for me. Easier that way."

Tifa cracked her first smile since the plate fell.

She had gone out to help again, just like she said she would, volunteering with a crew on the plateside this time. Anybody still trapped there had better odds, even if acknowledging it made her stomach squirm. After a couple hours, her body began protesting almost as strenuously as Cloud and she was forced to head back for some rest. On the way back she stopped at a strip mall in Sector 8 for cheap clothes to get her through the week and a couple jars of peanut butter for the house. Dark roast. Crunchy. The good stuff. Not commensurate with her gratitude or her culinary ability, but she would make both known to Cloud eventually.

Back at the condo she became the latest addition to Cloud’s sofa tableau. She curled up on it for hours with the blanket from her bed piled around her and stayed there until all vestiges of the sun had gone. The 24 hour news station had few developments to report in between recycled footage that couldn't compare to her memory. It did have a tone-deaf speech from the new President, who looked far too pleased with himself. They named Avalanche as the perpetrators and showed Sephiroth's picture, which only made Tifa think of the old President.

“He took Aeris, you know,” she repeated to Cloud as he approached from the door. “Just killed all those people and took her with him. But it seemed like maybe she wanted to go.” Her chin settled on her knees, pulled up against her chest. “Doesn’t make any sense. Nothing does.”

Cloud said nothing. He set two tubs of ice cream and a box of plastic spoons down on the coffee table, then sank down on the couch next to her, watching with a stitch in his brow. The news cut to another scene and the TV showed them grainy footage of Tifa, the night before, leveraging the strength from her training to dig someone out of the rock and rebar. The anchor said her name and speculated on her relationship with the Zero-SOLDIER in a way that made her think they had been talking to her ex-coworkers. They didn't bother to name the actual victim.

"Let's take a break," said Cloud, reaching for the remote.

"No. We have to watch it. It's important."

"We lived it. We don't need the peanut gallery."

In the quiet between them, the peanut gallery declared them fast childhood friends from the same charming little mountain town while the carnage continued in the background. Cloud rubbed the back of his head and sighed.

"There's a big state funeral coming up. For the President, but for the victims too. You should come with me. Might help."

"Maybe," said Tifa. At the last funeral she'd been to, she did get the impression that it was to help all the grown ups somehow. It certainly hadn’t made her feel any better about losing her mother.

"Why did this happen, Cloud? You were there, you tried to stop it. So why would anyone do this?"

"… Wish I knew, Tifa," he said, looking away, a strained set to his jaw.

"What about Aeris? Do you know where she is now?"

"No. We think she's alright, but we're still looking for her."

Tifa sunk deeper into her blankets at that. For as briefly as they’d known one another, Aeris stood out in Tifa’s mind as charming, funny, and - a bit like Cloud - not one to ever ask for help. She supposed she’d made an impression, and seeing her covered in wires and trapped under glass and spirited away into the night had made that impression stronger. It was something else Tifa felt strangely responsible for. Maybe if she had pressed harder on whatever was going on with her, things would have been different, and some psychopath wouldn't have absconded with her. She couldn't work out what she was supposed to have done to stop it, but that didn't stop the feeling that it was _something_.

A commercial for candy bars with Cloud's face on it played in the corner of the screen. Absently, Tifa hummed a few bars of the jingle. Cloud switched the television off.

"What do you wanna do?"

"I dunno," Tifa sighed. "Figure out whatever I'm supposed to do next."

* * *

“We’re gonna go back and blow ‘em all to smithereens, right?” shouted Yuffie, punching at the air. “I’m pissed!”

They had all gathered together upstairs in the inn room, spread out around its aged oak furniture. Aeris sat perched at the end of one of the beds, smoothing one hand over the homespun gingham quilt. Nearby, Sephiroth leaned against the far wall and Red curled up on the floor between them, while Barret grimaced at Yuffie as she shadowboxed in the centre of the group. 

“Ain’t that simple,” Barret argued. “We knew they’d be on high-alert in Midgar once we got down to business, but this is way beyond what we were ready for. We gotta be smart about this. Lay low, figure out our next move, then hit ‘em back.”

“Ugh, seriously? Seph… iroth, you're with me on this, right?"

“No,” he said without looking up. “Barret’s right.”

"Wow! Traitor!” Yuffie boomed. “What gives, you love blowing Shinra to smithereens!"

The corner of Sephiroth’s mouth twitched. Aeris wondered if he was trying not to smile or frown.

“We’ll have better opportunities available to us if we exercise a bit of prudence.” He paused here for a moment. “Also. Aeris and I spoke recently. Our current information is lacking, but we plan to learn more about the nature and power of the Cetra. Doing so may provide us with a new advantage.”

Aeris looked up from the square patterns she’d been tracing on the bedspread. The conversation about what Avalanche was going to do next hadn’t much concerned her, given that she wasn't really Avalanche. She had been listening with half her attention, mostly waiting for a sign that she’d have to insist upon being brought along with everyone. Instead, Sephiroth caught her eye from the corner of his, watching for her response.

Aeris grinned at him, then looked out at the room.

“Right!" she chimed in, as though this had been their secret agenda all along. "Who knows what we'll be able to do once we learn more.” 

With faint approval, Sephiroth nodded to her, then bowed his head again. Aeris beamed at him a moment or two longer. She had no idea where they might begin honing their Ancient instinct, but the prospect thrilled her. It was certainly _possible_ that they'd find some power in themselves along the way. At the very least, she was confident that Avalanche would have two born gardeners at their disposal.

“Perhaps you both should journey with me to Cosmo Canyon,” offered Red, who had been just as quiet as Aeris to this point. “Grandfather knows much of the Planet, and keeps histories lost to time.”

“Cosmo Canyon, eh? Always meant to go there, learn more about spiritual energy," Barret mused. "But… you saying dogs can be master scholars?”

“Grandfather is human,” Red sniffed. “He lacks your prejudice.”

“Now hold on just a minute—”

“Ugh, so instead of fighting back, you all want to go to _school?_ ” Yuffie made a face in disgust.

“Learning more about spiritual energy has gotta make you stronger with materia,” Barret countered. Yuffie shot him a suspicious look, but fell silent as she considered it.

“Fort Condor should still be independent of Shinra rule,” Sephiroth continued. “They'll harbour us, and it's near enough that we can travel on foot. Once there, we can secure transport to Mideel and complete the voyage by sea.”

“S’pose I could get my old man to send a boat to meet us…” Yuffie pondered. “Wait, where’s Mideel again?”

“We’ll work out the details on the way,” said Barret with a wave of his hand. “For now, sounds like we got a plan. Let’s go get something to eat.”

As the others filed out of the room, Sephiroth hung back against the wall, gazing distractedly out the window at the quiet town below. Aeris approached him with an easy smile and he turned to look at her once he noticed her.

“Reconsidered it, huh?”

“We have a rare opportunity,” he explained, as confidently neutral as he had been during the team’s meeting. “To have met at all is providence, and Shinra's resources are spread thin at the moment. This chance shouldn’t be wasted.”

"Oh no no, don't go giving _me_ the practical explanation,” she grinned, jabbing him in the chest with an accusing finger. “ _You_ wanted this, too."

In fleeting surprise, he glanced down to where she had touched him, then met the challenge of her self-satisfied smile with one of his own. His had a sharper cast to it, and he leaned toward her just enough to give the unnerving impression of looming, amusement obvious in his voice.

"You know what I want, do you?"

"Yup.” Aeris lifted her chin, her face only brightening with the opportunity for defiance. “And you should have told me you'd made your mind up sooner. I was wondering if you might try to leave me behind and force me to tell you where to stick it."

"Hm, while here I suspected you might drag your feet, or try to head back to Midgar alone,” he chuckled. The smirk faded from his face as he drew back and turned his head to peer out the inn’s window in thoughtful silence. The levity in his bearing bled away quickly. Something about the town seemed to preoccupy him. After a few moments he spoke again. “The rational explanation _is_ the explanation, you know."

Aeris tipped her head as she studied his face in profile. He struck a pensive figure now, his mouth a sober line and his eyes unnaturally bright even in the full light of the sun. Providence, he said, and he seemed to sincerely mean it. She wondered if she believed it was providence, too. The fingerprints of destiny on the pages of her life had been pointed out to her often enough for her to resent them. 

"Well, however you want to explain it," Aeris smiled, turning toward the stairwell, "I'm glad you came around."

Just this once, she supposed she wouldn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cloud shilling for Butterfinger is diagetic in this universe. Also, it is a light-up palm tree lamp. He just thought it was neat.
> 
> Thanks to Nautilusopus for beta reading.


	15. Listen

“I swear I can do it,” Yuffie insisted, crossing her heart. “It was part of my ninjutsu training - which I _aced_ , by the way.”

“All I said was that I’d like to see it,” Red replied with an air of innocence.

“‘Cause you don’t think I can do it!”

“Well, it would certainly be surprising.” 

They stood down the slope at the edge of the river bank, their arguing growing louder and carrying up to where the rest of the group stood. Aeris shielded her eyes from the noonday sun with one hand, looking out over the landscape with fascination. Her gaze traced the escarpment peaks and grassy hills in the distance to the blanket of yellowing rush grass on the opposite bank. The river itself was vast and straight and slow-moving, its waters deep enough to run black instead of blue. She had picked a good landscape to stop and admire.

“It’s so big,” she said with a note of awe. “They aren’t all so big, are they?”

“Not all. This one’s where all the little ones meet. Runs all the way out to the ocean,” said Barret at her side, gesturing to the north where the river ended.

“The ocean…” she echoed.

Sephiroth watched as she curled one of her hands against her chest and admired the vista in silence. Aeris was the one who had proposed that they head along the river, once she spotted it in the distance as the party embarked from Kalm. It made sense - following its path would take them in the direction that they were going, and they’d want to pitch camp next to water as often as they were able. He had given the idea his endorsement, forgetting that she hadn’t made the suggestion out of practicality.

Barret answered her questions on the occasions when she asked them. More often than she asked anything, she took careful notice of the world. She stopped, the way she was stopped now, to follow the buzzing of a dragonfly or to catch a gust of dandelion fluff. Whenever she did, Sephiroth thought of the church garden and the spry stalks she'd coaxed up between rotting wood planks. Seeing her bend down by every scrubby half-dead wildflower on the outskirts of the wastes, simply because she had never seen any of them before, summoned a familiar, aching rage in him. The indignity and injustice struck him close, made him want to turn back toward Midgar and raze it to the ground for all it had stolen. It made him wonder how she could stand it.

But Aeris said nothing. Not about the injustice, or the confinement, or Midgar, which none of the others had ever been forced to endure for more than a few months. At times he thought he saw something plaintive about the way she studied the world, but mostly she drank it in with quiet wonder. The rising wind picked at her braid as she watched the sunlight shimmer off the water's surface in silence. So Sephiroth buried the pangs of his fury, in the practiced way he knew how. 

A splash in the distance turned their attention back to the bank. Yuffie was shouting out over the water, to where Red had plunged in. He paddled out into the depths with a few strong strokes, then disappeared under the current, re-emerging a moment later with a silver-scaled fish squirming in his jaws. With his head held proudly in the air, he waded back to shore, a few meters downstream of where he started. There was a prance in his step as he made his way back over to Yuffie and spat his catch at her feet.

“So what!” she shouted. “Big deal, you— mutant lion! I can still catch one with my bare hands!”

“Perhaps, but now I’ve caught one, and you haven’t.”

“It’s too deep here! I need to stand in the stream and centre myself first and stuff!” Yuffie stomped her foot. “Hey, hang on a sec, your tail’s still lit - does that thing stay on in the water?”

“That’s a personal question. …Hm, are the fish here meant to have that many eyes?”

“What? No way, turn it over— Whoa! Think we can still eat it for lunch?”

“Aw hell,” Barret muttered, starting down the slope toward the two of them to intervene before they poisoned themselves. 

Aeris folded her arms over her belly and laughed, her shoulders shaking. Sephiroth considered her quietly. Their antics _were_ somewhat amusing, he supposed, at least when observed safely from a 30 foot distance. He was just coming around to the idea of finding it funny and trying to recall if he’d actually seen Red’s tailfire go out when she turned around to approach him, still giggling.

“The river reminded me. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

“The river?” He looked at it again, the light shimmering silver across its surface. It offered no clarity.

“Maybe the ocean — but nevermind that. Do you think we have a second?”

He glanced over her shoulder. Down on the shore, Yuffie was crouched over the flapping fish, poking at it with a stick, while Red listened raptly to a lecture from Barret on food safety in the Greater Midgar Area.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “What is it?”

“I wanted you to take a look at this for me.”

With no further explanation, she reached up to the ribbon at the base of her braid and after a few moments of fiddling with it, tugged it loose. The wind wove through her hair and lifted it into the sun, along with the tails of the pink ribbon caught between her fingers. She raked them through the length of her hair and pulled free what was left of the braid, then shook her head out into the breeze. When it died away, her hair settled against the curve of her cheek and rolled down her back in gentle curls, the sunlight threading streaks of gold into the chestnut.

It took him a moment to look back to the hand she was holding out to him, and another to notice that it held something other than ribbon.

"Here," she said, lifting her hand higher. 

He plucked the materia from her palm for a closer look. It was smaller than the standard size, and also off-colour. He supposed it most closely resembled Magic, but far too pale, almost like it had no true colour at all. The turquoise cast to it had a pearlescent quality that made it look almost like a trick of the light. It glimmered as he rolled it in the crook of his palm.

“It was my mother’s,” Aeris explained, and he looked up to see that she was looking at the materia too, smiling softly at the memory. “She gave it to me a long time ago, just before she returned to the Planet. It seemed so important to her... But I’ve never been able to work out what it was supposed to do. She always just called it ‘white’ materia.” 

Aeris looked up at him, eyes earnest and greener than the spring grass.

“Think you can give it a try?”

Again, Sephiroth inspected the materia nestled in his palm. The truth was that it felt like nothing, another deeply unusual trait. That answer wouldn’t satisfy her, though, and it certainly did nothing to sate his own curiosity. He closed his fingers around it and shut his eyes and tried to cast it. Normally, it was easy to draw magic into himself, like pulling water from a brimming well. This magic would not be pulled. The attempt felt like trying to shove a mountain into place or draw up the ocean through a straw. Only, he had the strange sense that the mountain’s worth of magic inside of it was fully capable of waking on its own. Whatever was alive in it was simply too vast to fully stir.

“It won’t heed the cast,” he said.

“Too ‘full,’ right?” Aeris nodded, peering at the gleam through the gaps in his fingers. “That’s all I ever get from it. What’s it feel like to you?”

He turned it around in his hand again, relaxing his grip. That was difficult to answer, as well.

“Powerful magic,” he concluded, opening his eyes. “Very powerful. Only, I don’t know what kind. It has a foreboding to it.”

“Really? How strange.” 

With both hands, Aeris reached out to clasp his. The hand wound in pink ribbon settled over top of the materia in his palm and the other slid against the back of his hand to hold it steady. It was wise of her - his instinct had been to recoil, but if she thought herself brazen or noticed the way he had stiffened, she didn’t show it. She closed her eyes and bowed her head and focused on the materia they held between them, her hair spilling over her shoulders. He puzzled at the serenity of her subtle smile while he forced his own shoulders to relax. In the moments that followed, nothing happened, except for Sephiroth watching her to see if something would. It occurred to him that he ought to close his eyes and concentrate as well. 

His fingers curled against the edge of her palm as together they meditated on the strange materia held between them. The world dimmed around them and the sensations of it - the sun red through their eyelids and the sound of the rushing water - all fell away with their focus, save for the gentle wind against their faces. He saw her light in his mind's eye again, burning brighter than before, like a star when the dusk darkens.

Without warning, the materia seemed to spark. The effect was intangible, producing no fire or ice or lightning, only a sharp jolt of sudden, caustic energy that lingered in the hollow of his chest. Aeris felt it too, from the way her eyes shot open, but if she had felt the same sharpness then she didn't seem to mind the sensation. A grin bloomed bright across her face and she squeezed his hand tight between both of hers.

“Aha!” she exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “That’s exactly what it did in the gardens, the night I met you!”

That was even more curious. It had felt like a warning, of the sort even he would take heed of. The inside of his chest still stung.

“Perhaps it was meant to be cast by several Cetra, not a single wielder,” Sephiroth suggested. “Magic this strong would be dangerous if channelled by too weak a conduit."

“That’d explain why it’s been so do-nothing until now,” Aeris mused. She pulled her hands away and took the materia with them, holding it tightly over her heart, while Sephiroth’s hand hovered empty. His fingers curled slowly into a fist that he brought to his chest as well and pressed to the center of it, where the ghost of the pain resided, before letting it drift back to his side.

“You should be careful with it,” he warned. “It’s not the kind of spell you’d want to unleash accidentally.”

“Doubt I even could,” she said with a shrug, gathering her hair at the back of her head again. With deft hands she re-tied her ribbon, popping the materia into the final loop before pulling it tightly closed. “But that settles it! When we break camp tonight, we’re going to practice. Maybe we can eventually figure out what it does.”

“I just said we shouldn't try to cast it carelessly.”

“No, silly! Not practice with the materia!” She put her hands behind her back and leaned forward with a grin. “Practice being Cetra!”

Before he could commit in either direction, Yuffie called up from the banks.

“Hey guys, come see! I caught a salamander with three legs on one side!”

“Wouldn’t want to miss _that_ ,” Aeris said, a cheeky note in her broadening grin. 

Sephiroth watched her as she turned to race down the slope of the bank with her skirt gathered in her hands. The wind carried laughter and chatter from the riverside back to where he stood alone, waiting for their journey to continue and wondering how long the bite in his chest would linger.

* * *

They broke camp near a bend in the river. Red dug out the firepit and dozed next to it in the evening light, while the others shared in the work of pitching two tents, one for Aeris and Yuffie, with Barret and Sephiroth in the other. Red insisted he’d be most comfortable outside, next to the firepit. He also took charge of lighting the kindling while the others laid out food from their pack for Yuffie’s careful inspection. There were only a few things she took seriously outside of her training, and her turn to cook was one of them.

On the other side of a dinner that Sephiroth did not take with the others, he and Aeris set out to a quiet spot nearby in the last light of day. In the wild grasses of the open field, he sat across from her, spine straight and legs crossed with his hands at rest on his knees. His eyes were closed, and hers should have been too, but she had cracked one open to peek at him. He was calm, steady, with an intensity of focus that made her certain he wouldn’t open his eyes while she studied him. From looking at him, you would think it was completely effortless. She closed her eyes again, took a deep breath, and strained to hear the voice that wouldn’t come.

After another minute of fruitless silence, she sighed sharply.

“Is there a trick to how you’re sitting?”

“No.”

“What about your breathing?”

“No.”

“Are you doing _anything_ special?”

Sephiroth’s eyes opened at that, his brows lifting over them.

“Having trouble?”

The question sounded neutral enough that she tried not to take it personally. Aeris glared at the grass between them and traced the hem of her dress as it fell across her legs, curled to one side. Another obvious answer, too difficult to really admit.

“Are you sure you can hear it?” she bargained, lifting her head up to look him in the eye. 

“Mmhmm.” He shut his eyes again, lifted his chin a little higher, as though he weren’t already sitting rod-straight. “Less hear than feel. A connection to the whole. Life and corruption. Pain. Power.” When he looked at her again, it was with the slightest lilt to his head. “Can you not make out anything at all?”

“It’s all just noise,” Aeris sighed, kneading her brow. It seemed doubly wrong to let her frustration show, so she pulled herself straighter and dropped her hand back into her lap. “Maybe I’m just tired. I was supposed to know more about this than you, you know. I was going to make you call me _sensei_.”

“Oh really.” His head lilted the other way, good humour in the slant of his mouth. “Have you been speaking to Yuffie?”

“Just a little.”

Her smile came easy, and she felt better for wearing it. He didn’t smile much, she had noticed, not in the way that she did. Perhaps it was a lack of practice, or perhaps it was deliberate that he seemed to guard his face from open expression. Whichever, she found him surprisingly honest in exactly the way she usually tried to avoid. However taciturn he was, the wrinkle of his brow and the set of his mouth were open books, and she was a quick study. It gave her some comfort to peer into his face and find it free of judgment.

“You know, they wanted me to talk to the Planet a lot in the labs,” she said, letting her guard fall with her shoulders. “When I was up north, especially.”

“This shouldn’t be so different, then.”

“But that’s the thing.” She drew in a breath before the confession, steeling herself and looking him in the eyes in spite of her instinct to avoid them. “Mostly I just made it up.”

For a harrowing moment, Sephiroth lowered his gaze to the grass in consideration. She had just enough time to wonder if she should have kept quiet when he lifted his head again and nodded faintly.

“They expected results.”

“Exactly! Consistent ones, too.”

“I’m familiar,” he said, the dark intonation corroborating him.

Aeris felt a weight lift at that, a heavy stone of guilt that she knew she should never have been carrying in the first place. With it gone, all the creeping and crawling feelings that had been living under it wriggled free.

“I tried being honest at first, I really did, but they wouldn’t stop asking me. ‘Asking,’” she repeated, mocking the absurdity of _their_ word. “It wasn’t asking. When they wanted to start building Neo-Midgar, Tseng snatched me right off the streets. I was selling flowers. They shot through someone, some poor stranger, just to get to me. They wouldn’t let me leave or sleep or eat until I told them where the Promised Land was. The funny part is, they believed in me more than I ever did. As though I could just lead them there! They had already learned everything I knew and more from what they did to my mother. Does it even _exist_ _?_ Do you know?”

“I believe it does,” Sephiroth ventured through her expectant pause.

“Well, I made that up, too. I don't know why they believed me, 'cause if the land of Supreme Happiness is real, I don’t see how it could be in the middle of the stupid arctic!" She threw both hands up in frustration. They came down and folded tightly across her body instead. After the initial burst of steam she was slowing down and crawling closer to what really bothered her.

“I don’t even know why I said it was there. Maybe because my mother was from the north. But even when I wasn’t making it up, when I did really feel something, like when someone had returned to the Planet or where to find a Mako spring or whatever powerful materia they wanted, it wasn’t ‘right’ to them. They didn’t want me to just guess or have feelings about things, they wanted me to… to know. And to repeat for them what the Planet told me, word for word.

“But it’s never _told_ me anything.” She swallowed hard. “No one ever told me how to do any of this. Even my mother.”

She didn’t mist up, sniffle, or crumple inwards. She didn't do anything but hold her arms tight across herself and stare hard at the grass. Still, she must have told on herself somehow, because Sephiroth was clearly giving her a minute. When he spoke again, she listened closely, dreading an undertone of pity. She heard only interest.

“What did your mother say?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “That one day I’d get out of Midgar, speak to the Planet, and find my Promised Land. Guess I managed step one, at least. I wasn’t sure that would ever happen.”

Sephiroth was quiet. His immaculate posture had slackened by shades and he bowed his head as he synthesized his thoughts on all that she had said. Aeris waited for them.

"When I learned the truth, I heard my mother, too," he explained. "Her voice was a comfort, but they… did terrible things to her, as well. They've caused her pain that has followed her even through death."

A familiar shadow passed over his face as he spoke. He continued his explanation without indulging it.

"Speaking to the Planet took time. It came through her, at first. And even though I had never managed it before, the connection itself felt… familiar. As though it had always existed, just out of my reach. I didn’t know what it was when I was young. And I didn’t realize it until much later, but they had expectations of me, too.” He paused here, sifting through memory. “When I was a child, Shinra’s scientists asked me over and over again where the Promised Land was located. I didn’t understand. I excelled at every other test, pushed past the limit of all the other things they asked of me, but that single question...”

Aeris remembered, too, and she gazed at him as she did. It was too easy to imagine him in her place, just as small as she had been, with the same metal tracking bracelet locked around his wrist. Trapped in the same fishbowl room, surrounded by the same leering faces, all demanding that he explain what couldn’t be explained. How many years had Shinra spent interrogating captive mothers and frightened children?

“I’m sorry. I know what it’s like, and you shouldn’t ever have gone through it. When my mother couldn’t answer them, they… Did they do anything to you? For not knowing?”

“No. But Professor Gast… disappeared, just as they began training me for what would become SOLDIER. He never said anything, but after a lifetime of research, my inability must have disappointed him.”

He said it plainly, as though the fault lay with him, as though it was a perfectly reasonable conclusion for Professor Gast to come to, and as though it no longer bothered him at all. His face really did betray him once you learned how to read it.

“I— I don’t think that’s true,” Aeris argued, shaking her head. “And if it is, then it’s not at all fair. Even my mother couldn’t tell them where it was. And you were just a kid! You didn’t disappoint anybody.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Sephiroth said with the faintest shrug of his shoulders. “Perhaps if he were still alive.”

“ _None_ of them matter now,” she added quickly. “And what did they know, anyway? You _can_ listen to the Planet. That’s all I want to do.”

“Hm.” The cant of his head returned, and he brushed past her protests to what she pointedly wasn’t asking. “Do you want my help?”

“Well...” Aeris scanned his face again, searching it carefully for some reflection of the kernel of shame that had burrowed its way into her heart. Finding nothing, she supposed he might be able to help her dig it out. “I guess, if you’re offering.”

“Tell me more, then,” he said with authority, getting right to it. “You said you can feel it sometimes.”

“Yeah. Not a voice exactly, the only voice I ever hear is my mother’s, but… I don’t know.” She moved her hands, trying to conjure an image of something intangible. “When I was alone in the church, I did feel… connected to something.”

“And what about now?”

“I don’t know. More adrift.” 

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I’m just… asking, I guess.”

“Asking the Planet?”

“Yeah, like, ‘please speak to me!’” She clasped her hands together, in the way she often did when asking this exact question. “But I don’t hear anything back.”

“Hm,” he said, taking her measure. “And in the church? What are you doing when you hear it then?”

“Gardening or nothing.”

“Gardening is impossible at the moment, so you should try nothing.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

“I mean it,” he insisted. “Close your eyes.” 

From the expectant look he gave her, it was clear he did mean it. With a sigh, she adjusted her posture, tucking her legs underneath her and sitting up straighter to mirror him. Maybe it would help this time. 

She let her eyes slip shut and strove to do nothing. Fussing over her posture and trying not to worry about how it was going was a shade more than nothing, though. She listened for Sephiroth’s next instruction, and wound up taking his silence as her cue. First she let go of her anticipation of his voice, then her expectation for herself. It took time to arrive at nothing, but she found it eventually, and it was full of the feeling of her own breath in her lungs and the last light of day on her pale skin and the memory of the river in her mind’s eye. Underneath it all, a familiar tug like the undertow.

“What do you feel?” he asked eventually.

“Sort of… The usual stuff. Nothing in particular. A little bit of everything.” She frowned, and imagined stepping into the river, feeling the current eddy around her legs. “Both at the same time. Waves. Energy.”

“Pick something around you and focus in on it.”

That was the easy part, particularly when the waves running off of her chosen something were impossible to ignore, even when he was doing no more than sitting straight and silent across from her. 

“Okay, simple enough.”

“Good. Now pick something else.”

“But none of these things are hearing the Planet,” Aeris frowned.

“You move through the Planet to feel them, don't you?” he continued. “The space between, the feeling when you switch your focus, before the next impression sharpens. Lean into it.”

Aeris frowned harder. She waded in deeper, felt the saltwater lapping at her skin. It was so simple. Obvious. Not the waves, but the water. Maybe the whole tide, rising and falling like breath at her back. All of it taken for granted. She leaned back into the ocean with her arms spread and let it bear her up, real and present and solid. There was no voice, no words, but bubbling up from underwater was a faint and distant song. 

“Like... floating,” she murmured.

“Hm?”

“Nevermind.” She was smiling when she opened her eyes to Sephiroth peering intently at her. “I _can_ feel it, and it’s more familiar than I thought.” Aeris bowed her head. “But still not really like what I expected. I wonder if I just need more practice.”

“Don't be so uncertain. We are Cetra, the Planet's chosen. Embrace it.” He swept his hands out, confident and grand. “Whatever we feel is reality. Whatever understanding we come to will be the truth.” He lowered his hands, but conviction still rang in his voice as he looked levelly at Aeris. “No Shinra fool should shape your expectation.”

“Right,” Aeris nodded, supposing that made sense. “I'm embracing. And thanks." Her smile was only a little guilty. "I think you might have listened more to me than to the Planet, but it helped.”

A smirk flashed over his face, like the cat that caught the canary.

“Mm. Will you be calling me _sensei_ , then?”

"Not a chance!” Aeris laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this one was longer than usual, but hopefully worth it!
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive and Nautilusopus for early readings.


	16. The Very Model

Exposure to the gleaming new facilities of Neo-Shinra Tower took a lot of the shine out of the original Tower. Nowhere was this more so than the labs. Midgar’s tower still impressed Cloud with a sense of majesty, power, and wonder, but the bustling labs, cramped with other specimens, were more unwelcoming than they had ever been. The place reeked of mako and ozone and despair, with only the diligent ignorance of the staff to paper it over. Cloud knew it well. Very well.

Today they were stationed in Hojo’s preferred examination room. By now he could recognize it no matter what state he was in, just from the pattern of the overhead light’s fluorescent flicker and the dents in the cold metal table he was curled on. He ran his fingers over the grooves as he blinked away into the bright white.

“I see you remain incapable of following simple directions.”

The Professor spoke crisply from across the room, where he stood with his back to Cloud, in front of a lit screen crowded with black-and-white images. “Not that anyone in this blasted company knows how to heed my good advice.” Hojo drummed his gloved fingers against his folded arms, gazing off into the middle distance as he often did when he was considering which complaints to regale his captive audience with next. “And Sephiroth got away, as ever. Disappointing. Though it does seem that for whatever reason, he left you in better shape than the last time. Have you any idea why?” 

“I already told you what happened,” Cloud droned. 

It was a lie. He had repeated the same one to everyone, a dozen times over. The truth made such little sense that he still found it difficult even to admit to himself. He vaguely imagined confessing to the Professor, pictured Hojo’s eyes going wide with interest behind his glasses at the news: Sephiroth had cornered him, injured him, and let him go. It confounded him enough that Sephiroth had for once shown mercy, but it troubled Cloud so much more that he had been on the receiving end of it. 

He knew what Hojo wouldn’t say, because the Professor never could bring himself to be properly disappointed when Cloud reported yet another loss to Sephiroth. Cloud knew the truth, here, too: He was a miserable failure. A real SOLDIER hero didn’t need help or mercy. A real SOLDIER would have put an end to the cat-and-mouse game long ago. A real SOLDIER would have been able to keep the plate from falling.

Thinking about that only made his stomach sink further. He’d saved Tifa by less than a block. Even “saved” seemed like too strong a designation for the condition she was in. Every day she went back to the site, to dig when she could get close enough and hand out food and water to the survivors when she couldn’t. Every day she came home, walled herself in thick blankets, binged the news cycle and insisted she was fine. And all he could do was bring her fucking ice cream.

“Perhaps a different frame of mind...” Hojo carried on musing to himself, unaware. He shuffled across the room to the counter where Cloud’s latest samples had been collected and assembled. Blood, bone and tissue, all waiting to be catalogued and studied. Hojo finished his hand-written notes with a flourish before he turned to pecking at the keyboard with mild disdain. “In any case, you’re healing at the expected rate. Do run along.”

Over one shoulder, he made a vague shooing gesture with his hand. He had begun to hum some old show tune under his breath as he looked over his work, tapping irregularly at the keys. Cloud sat up gingerly, resisting the instinct to reach to the base of his spine where the needle had been. He swung his feet over the side of the table and waited. The pain would wear off shortly. It always did.

“Thought I was due for mako showers,” he frowned at Hojo’s back. “Should I come back for them later?”

The scientist’s hunched posture straightened somewhat as he glanced back over his shoulder.

“My, they don’t tell you anything, do they?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your treatments have been suspended until further notice,” Hojo explained airily. “Rufus’ orders, you know.”

Cloud felt his chest constrict.

“What?” he said, hearing the note of panic in his own voice, trying to tamp it down. “What do you mean?”

Hojo sighed and finished his cataloguing work with a few more decisive keystrokes. The label printer whirred to life as he turned around to head toward it, addressing Cloud without once looking up.

“Surely I don’t really need to remind you that your baseline response to the treatment renders you utterly useless? You need the living Ancient’s genetic material to stabilize you, and given that the samples we retained are now limited, the President has opted not to waste them on you.” He hummed a few more bars, adjusted his glasses, and held the printed sheet up to the light.

“I… ” The point on Cloud’s back where they’d taken the biopsy throbbed, cold pain radiating outward through his entire body. He was imagining it. He was just imagining it. Cloud closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his palms hard into them and counted down from ten like he used to do when he was watching the tank door swing closed on him. 

It was just for a little while. Just until he could get Aeris — the Ancient — back. And he could do that. Of course he could. He was the Zero-SOLDIER now, wasn’t he? Even despite what had happened.

“Now, if you’d like to try a few more experimental procedures off-the-record, I’m certainly game,” Hojo chortled, collecting all his things and starting out the room. “Though it will need to wait until after my vacation. There’s reams of data yet to be processed on the Mark II reactor before then.”

“Vacation?” Cloud repeated in disbelief. 

Hojo paused at the threshold, looking back at Cloud. As a wicked little smirk spread over his face, it occurred to Cloud that even with his grumbling, the Professor seemed to be in an unusually good mood.

“You’d do well to remember that even great minds need rest and relaxation, Strife.” 

Hojo disappeared down the hallway, still humming the chorus.

* * *

By mid-morning they had packed away everything in the camp but the cooking supplies. While Yuffie provided Aeris with dubious instructions for folding away the tent poles, Sephiroth took his turn on the cooking rotation under Barret’s watchful eye. With nowhere to escape to and a day’s travelling ahead, he even breakfasted with the rest of them, albeit mostly in silence. 

"It's bland," complained Yuffie.

"It's food," Sephiroth deadpanned, not looking up.

"It's better than the last time," Barret muttered darkly, adding a generous helping of salt.

If Red had any additional complaints, he held them privately, and Aeris found herself too amused to weigh in on the matter at all. Yuffie’s probing questions kept her busy, anyway. The younger girl watched her with a scrunched-up nose and appraising eyes as she peppered Aeris with questions about exactly how much of the world she was unfamiliar with.

“Did you know the sky was blue?” Yuffie asked as they walked across the plain, her twentieth question that morning.

“Of course,” Aeris scoffed. “Everybody knows the sky is blue, even in Midgar.” Nevermind that she hadn’t seen it in any shade other than grey until fairly recently.

“Think she might be running out of questions to bother you with,” Barret chuckled.

“I’m just curious!” Yuffie protested.

“I know most of the things everybody else knows. It’s just so many of them are different from what I thought they'd be.”

“How so?” asked Red.

"Like… It’s so green, " Aeris mused. "I didn’t think it could get so green. I figured they just made it up for movies."

“Eh, back home’s greener,” said Yuffie. “If you ask me, everything around here is weirdly yellow.”

“… What else is different?” prompted Sephiroth, speaking again for the first time since they'd set out. Aeris thought about it for a moment.

“The birds. They sing all the time, even when it's still dark.”

“See? I’m right, you’re weird.”

“Yuffie!” scolded Barret.

In the pause that followed Yuffie’s sharp sigh, they listened to a snatch of a birdsong carrying through the meadow.

“I wonder what kind they are…” Aeris murmured.

“Black-naped Oriole, I believe,” said Sephiroth without missing a beat.

“Huh?"

"How do you know?” wondered Red.

"The song,” he said simply.

“You can tell from the song?” asked Yuffie, incredulous. “How can you tell from the song?”

“I learned to recognize them.”

“What, just by hanging around and listening?” she demanded.

“No. Modern generals study matters vegetable, animal, mineral…” Sephiroth laughed to himself in that joyless way that he laughed sometimes, as though he'd just told a particularly grim joke, and shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“Ugh, you’re even weirder than her,” said Yuffie, her hands folded behind her head as she walked on ahead of both of them. Sephiroth stared in silent exasperation. Aeris slowed her stride until she was walking alongside him.

“Think we should take that?” she asked low and conspiratorial, miming a menacing squint at Yuffie’s back.

“She’s sixteen,” he said with the exhausted air of someone who had spent a fair bit of his adult life around sixteen year olds. “Arguing is a waste of energy.”

“True,” Aeris said. “Poor Barret, he knows that but just can't help himself, can he? So,” she continued lightly, looking up at him. “You like birds?”

“Not especially. I just know how to identify a few of them.”

“How many?”

“Sixty-seven.”

“Wow. Got a favourite?”

“No.”

“Sephiroth," said Aeris, very seriously. "That’s an awful lot of birds for no favourite.”

"Is there a threshold I'm not aware of?"

"Yup. After ten, you're obligated."

"And I’m sure you’re the expert on the matter," He looked at her, amusement flickering across his face.

"When it comes to favourites, I’m a professional. So what’s your excuse?"

The small resigned noise he made didn’t quite match his expression as he began the story.

"I didn't pick it up purposely. My early education covered a wide variety of topics, intended to ensure that I was well-rounded.”

“So you studied birds?” Aeris tapped her chin. “Is that a normal subject in schools? Mom taught me.”

“Not exactly, and I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go to one either. Professor Hojo and his aides were responsible for my education.”

“Ugh,” said Aeris, with a face like biting into a lemon.

“I took some degree of interest in the natural sciences. You’d think he’d approve.”

“He never approves.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Sephiroth granted, sardonic humour creeping into his voice, a tilt to his mouth to match. “I suppose it goes without saying that he was a terrible teacher. He used to go on long diatribes, ranting about some irrelevant fact in the textbook and why it was all wrong. I learned more from reading the books Professor Gast left behind.”

“Sounds about right,” Aeris balked. “He’s so pedantic I could blow fifteen minutes of lab time by pronouncing a word wrong on purpose.”

“You’re getting the gist of it, then. Gast left one book - for children, I suppose - that came with recorded examples of bird calls,” he gave breath of laughter here, this one with some real mirth to it. “He couldn’t stand it. I'd listen to the songs for a while and his face would turn redder and redder until he exploded. He’d shout about wasting my mind on useless trivia… But then he’d lock me in the room with whatever he wanted me to focus on instead, and I’d get to be alone and unattended for some time.”

Aeris smiled along, but tipped her head sympathetically.

"They were always watching you, huh?"

"Mm."

“Still, though. You memorized sixty-seven bird calls? Just to annoy him? You didn’t enjoy it at all?”

He gave his response a shade defensively.

“I have a very good memory, I spent a lot of time outdoors on deployments, and my options for ‘annoying’ him were limited.”

Aeris considered this for a moment. When she spoke, she leaned in, her manner snapping back to conspiratorial.

“You know how he’s always drinking coffee?”

“Mmhmm. Six shots of espresso in a single mug. Ridiculous.”

“I spit in it once,” she said, her whole face radiant with delight. “He drank the whole thing.”

Sephiroth looked back at her, suitably amused and impressed.

“Brave girl.”

“Well, you know,” she said, buffing her nails exaggeratedly on her jacket, “I did jump out of a helicopter once.”

“That you did,” Sephiroth chuckled. 

* * *

For all intents and purposes, The Turks' office was Tseng’s office. Rude did his paperwork from the lounge, Reno didn't do it at all, and Elena could work anywhere, but especially wherever she had Reno in earshot for a scolding about his work ethic. Eventually she was bound to give up like the rest of them had, and Tseng might finally have to share again, but for now, it was his office, and he made the most of the privacy. This particular evening, that meant filling the expansive space with his own quiet contemplation.

His gloves lay folded in the corner of his handsome maple desk, and his fingers were folded in front of his drawn mouth as he studied the file that lay open atop it. The photograph had drawn his eye. Aeris looked her worst, so wan and tired. Tseng recalled with a crease in his brow that she had looked even more hollow in-person on the night the picture had been taken. 

That night hadn't gone smoothly, but she had managed better after intake. Neo-Midgar made for a good change of scenery for her, and before they went north, they had made better memories closer to home. He thought of her cranking the seat warmers in his company car and grinning defiantly as she propped her dirty old boots up on the dashboard, the back seat full of shopping bags. Behind his hands, Tseng tried to suppress his own wry smile.

She wasn't happy. He knew she wasn't. But in moments like that, she was something like it. In the lives and duties they were bound to, those moments counted. Expecting them to last forever was as foolish as it was childish. The best thing you could do was approach life realistically, hone your cunning, and work toward making the right sort of trade-offs and trade-ups. In this manner, he had worked hard to put Rufus in his rightful place, where Tseng might finally put his thumb on the scale.

And now Aeris had run off with Sephiroth.

Reviewing the facts of the matter, he could understand why. Leaving Midgar and exploring the world beyond had undeniable allure for Aeris. He hoped for her sake that she savoured the taste of freedom while it lasted, however artificial or short-lived he judged it. _Sephiroth_ , though. A lifetime ago, they had worked well together, but he had always lacked Tseng’s knack for cold, clear-eyed realism. Most SOLDIERs did. Turks knew better, and Tseng was the very model of a Turk. It was obvious that despite his rebellion, Sephiroth was just as bound to his lot in life as Aeris and Tseng were, even if he didn’t recognize the fetters.

But Aeris was his real concern, and she was as canny as she was reckless. She would begin to see his delusions for what they were soon enough.

"Tseng?"

When he looked up, human headache Cloud Strife was darkening his doorway. He wore his usual expression of wide-eyed vacancy offset by angry eyebrows, and Tseng guessed from his posture that he was aiming for extra churlish this evening. If Sephiroth or Aeris could be called naive about their place in the world, there was no word damning enough for Cloud. Five years on and he was still completely incapable of understanding the terms of the deal he had made. At least he had the wherewithal to cover up what Tseng suspected was a seditious attack of sympathy.

Cloud’s luminescent eyes skated over Aeris' picture on the desk. Tseng snapped the folder shut. He paused here to reign himself in, to shovel dark earth over his personal feelings like so many graves.

“Can I help you with something?”

"Have you located them?" Cloud asked. "I thought we could debrief so that I'm ready to go whenever—"

“It’s under control,” Tseng clipped.

“What do you mean?" Cloud demanded, stepping up to the opposite side of Tseng’s desk. Tseng wished he wouldn't. "Heidegger’s still got me on cleanup and quarantine. Said you took over the search, and I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

“I did take over the search." He got calmly to his feet. "There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll have the Ancient back in custody as soon as possible.”

Cloud raised his voice louder and jabbed a thumb at his chest.

“Hunting Sephiroth is my job.”

“Yes, and you've done it poorly.” Tseng answered icily. He cleared his throat, and some of the frost from his voice. "At the moment, the President has decided it would be better to capitalize on the value you’re bringing to public relations. The people like you, Cloud. They find you honest. Approachable. When the science is ready, the next generation of SOLDIER will most likely be recruits following in your footsteps, figuratively and literally. Until the situation stabilizes, you are most useful in enticing your eventual replacements.”

Cloud stepped back from the desk as though he had been struck. Tseng watched the naivety in his open face transform into furious desperation.

"You can’t do this," Cloud sputtered.

“Do what, my job?” He sunk back into his leather seat, confident that his work was done, slid Aeris’ folder into the top draw of his desk, and opened the next file demanding his attention. "Have a good evening, Cloud. I'll inform you as soon as I've found them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Nautilusopus for proofreading, and to Gilbert and Sullivan in general. Hojo likes the classics.


	17. Natural

“Chocobos!” Aeris called with delight as soon as she’d spotted them. A ways ahead, a dozen birds ambled around the green grass of their enclosure, preening and warking behind graying wooden fences. She scrunched her nose up as she judged the distance between the party and their destination. Deeming it short enough, she broke into a run, and Yuffie followed along behind her.

“I’ll show you how to ride ‘em!” she called after Aeris.

“Okay! Can’t be that hard, can it?” Aeris could be heard answering as the two of them made for the pens.

“ _Are_ we going to be riding them?” Red asked dubiously.

“Dunno about you, but I expect the rest of us will. Unless someone feels like fighting Zoloms,” Barret said good-humouredly, glancing sidelong to Sephiroth.

“I’d rather not bother,” Sephiroth replied impassively.

“Uh-huh,” Barret shook his head. “Snake’s as big as a goddamn reactor and you’d _rather not bother_. Shit.”

Red listened to their exchange in worried silence.

“Chocobo riding seems a rather bipedal activity, and I’m not sure how one evades a ‘Zolom.’”

“Eh? Hm, guess riding’d be tough for you, no thumbs and all. Well don’t you worry, you can ride with me!” Barret grinned wide and drummed his hand against his chest. 

Red looked up at him in doleful silence.

“I’ll hold on real tight,” Barret offered.

“With the gun arm or the regular one?” Red probed warily.

“Well I’ll need a good grip on the reins but — C’mon, don’t give me that look! You can trust me.”

Red glanced to Sephiroth, as if seeking corroboration on that fact.

“Hey! For real?!”

Barret’s cajoling, Red’s hemming and hawing, and Sephiroth’s quiet observation all continued as they drew closer to the fences. The girls had clambered up to the first rung to lean excitedly toward the birds. Aeris nearly toppled in when she bent toward one to mimic its ‘wark’. Watching her recover with pinwheeling arms, Sephiroth shook his head. He still wasn’t used to the buoyancy of his traveling companions, but assumed he must be coming closer to it. At least he was starting to see the humour in the situation.

It drained abruptly away as he lifted his head and caught sight of a sleek black vehicle, parked just around the corner of the chocobo barn.

“Barret.” The warning tone and the command in his voice pierced through both conversations, and all the others turned to look as Barret stepped forward to investigate. He followed Sephiroth’s line of sight and at the end of it found enough reason to reach for the safety switch on his gun-arm. The helicopter stood empty now, but the logo emblazoned on the side marked it Shinra.

“Should we blow it up?” asked Yuffie, a note of doubt underlying her destructive instinct.

“Maybe. Not if it’ll bring out more of ‘em,” Barret answered. “Let’s check it out.”

“No need.” Looking toward the farmhouse, Sephiroth spotted the helicopter’s owner ambling up the garden path. 

Tseng’s suit jacket hung over his shoulder, hooked casually on two fingers. It was rare to see him without the crisp angled lines of his blazer, and still rarer to see him with a lit cigarette jutting out of the corner of his thin mouth. His hair had finished growing out, Sephiroth noticed, and marked the time that had passed since last they’d met. It also added a note of maturity to the easy poise with which the bastard held himself. He looked Sephiroth dead in the eye as he approached. It demonstrated the kind of nerve, Sephiroth thought, that a different sort of man might find respectable. His hands curled fast around the grip of Masamune and he brought it level to his shoulder.

“Tseng!”

The point of his sword was suddenly aimed at Aeris’ back. His eyes narrowed briefly at her bobbing ribbon as she jogged obliviously out ahead of him. Her staff was at the ready, which he approved of, but held far too low across her body, her shoulders too bunched in anticipation. Plus, having carelessly planted herself between Tseng and the end of his blade, she was standing in entirely the wrong position. He advanced quickly to her side, Tseng’s dark eyes following the Masamune like a bead.

“Aeris,” Tseng answered cordially, inclining his head to her. His free hand hovered near the gun at his hip as he stared evenly down the barrel of the one mounted to Barret’s arm. His eyes shifted to Red’s bared fangs and Yuffie’s drawn shuriken, coming at last to rest on the sword and staff brandished at the head of the pack. His assessment came in a placid puff of smoke:

“What a crew you’ve fallen in with.”

“Better than I’m used to,” Aeris shot back. Tseng nearly smiled.

“You look well,” he said lightly. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt. I was worried.”

Aeris’ frown stayed fixed in place, but some of the tension ran out of her shoulders. A fraught but familiar look passed between the two of them, blanketing a silence over the rest of the group that Sephiroth found suffocating.

“Cut the bullshit, Turk,” Barret broke in. “The hell are you doing here?”

"Questioning the ranch owners about potential Avalanche sightings,” Tseng explained with the ease of a man accustomed to being openly threatened. “And now that I’ve done that — I'm off duty.”

The others exchanged confused looks. Sephiroth knew just what he was driving at, but also knew better than to take Tseng at his word. He held steady. Irritatingly, Aeris lowered her staff even further.

“It makes no difference,” Sephiroth said.

"Sure doesn't," agreed Barret. "Scum is scum, on or off the clock."

“Oh, I’d say it’s about a day’s worth of difference to _you_ ,” Tseng answered coolly, looking up at both of them from under raised eyebrows. He hung his jacket neatly over his arm and fished a marble cigarette snuffer and a pewter case out of his pocket. As he spoke, he stubbed out the smoke and replaced it in the case. “Should be enough time to make it through the mines, past the obvious choke-point where we might deploy personnel to trap you, wouldn’t you say?

“Of course, I’ll have no choice but to respond if I’m engaged, and I’m sure _President Rufus_ will have no choice but to respond if I’m late for our dinner appointment this evening.” He snapped the case shut and looked up again. Uncertain silence rippled through the members of Avalanche, so he brought the matter to a finer point: “Move, if you would, and we’ll settle this another time.”

“We’re supposed to believe a snake like you?” shouted Yuffie.

“What’s your proposal? You’d rather risk the consequences and try to kill me?”

“No,” said Aeris, at nearly the same time Sephiroth said “Yes.”

They looked at each other, incredulous. Tseng laughed low. He slipped the cigarette case in his pocket and started again toward the helicopter. 

“Do take care, Aeris.”

Sephiroth scanned the group in disbelief as one by one they lowered their weapons to let him pass. Red and Yuffie took their cue from Barret, who watched Tseng with a growl in his throat and a jut to the hard set of his jaw, but made no move to stop his approach. It was plain he had weighed the risk heavier than the reward, but Sephiroth did not take the same measure. He had already let one of Shinra’s monsters walk away from him intact. He saw no reason to spare another.

He surged forward - or he meant to. What stopped him was surprise rather than force. From beside him, Aeris had stuck one of her thin arms out across his body, barring his way forward. He stared at it, seething, following the line of it back to Aeris’ grave face.

“Don’t,” she said firmly. Behind her, Tseng had drawn his gun. He couldn't be certain that Aeris had noticed that it was pointed at _her_. "Just let him go."

Sephiroth lowered his weapon reluctantly, the better to turn and face her. His fingers still twitched around the Masamune’s hilt, his mind buzzing with a million ways to strike at Tseng, all of them competing with the sharp sting of betrayal he felt from Aeris. That she laid her hand on his sword arm, that it read to him like a halting appeal, only worsened matters.

"What are you doing?"

“He’s offering to let us get away, and we should take him up on it,” she said. She looked back unapologetic and unyielding. “We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

Sephiroth scrabbled for words, and shared the two he arrived at with furious urgency:

“He’s _Shinra._ ”

“ _Really_ , Sephiroth?” Tseng interjected. His expression dripped disdain. “It’s been a long time, but not _that_ long. ‘He’s Shinra,’ as though you aren’t. I came from the same place as you did, and we both know that you don't leave it behind.” 

Sephiroth stiffened. He said nothing, but felt his blood surge, hot and venomous. It occurred to Sephiroth in that moment that he could not remember ever having _met_ Tseng. Tseng simply appeared, in the same rooms as him and at the same age, which had been noteworthy in those days. In his recollection, his face was rounder, his body awkward and gangly underneath suits always slightly outgrown in some way, but he carried himself with the same cool severity that he had honed to a knife’s point as he aged. He wore his hair short back then, cropped to his ears. Both of them had. And hadn’t they talked about deciding to grow it out? Another similarity, a shared marker of their difference - not unlike their prodigal excellence.

But he had said so before; it made no difference. That had been another life, one where his purpose had been as mistaken as his identity. Sephiroth stepped closer, the Masamune searing in his grip and his voice low and dangerous.

"You know nothing. I'm one of the Planet's _chosen_ , called upon to—”

"Oh, spare me,” Tseng said acidly. He turned to face Sephiroth fully now. “If you were chosen by _anyone_ , it was by Shinra. You can't change what you are any more than a couerl can change its spots, and I know exactly what you are. Perhaps you do, too, somewhere in there.”

Aeris followed Sephiroth’s steps forward and hovered uncertainly between them. Though she scarcely reacted, Tseng had kept his gun trained on her. A calculating move on his part. She made for a more vulnerable target in the first place, and she had let her guard down against him from the start. She looked at Sephiroth now, her mouth drawn thin and anxious. He saw her earlier appeal repeated in her eyes when he looked into them. Then, he looked past her, back at Tseng. He knew he was faster, by enough of a margin that Tseng would have steel through his throat before he could fire - if he wasn't bluffing in the first place.

Tseng moved just as he did. He had always been sharper than most, good at reading people and reacting before they knew they had even given themselves away. Sephiroth realized his mistake in how little he'd concealed himself too late. Tseng lunged toward him even before the blade began its singing arc towards him. Sephiroth followed through and pivoted with the force of it, turning to find that Tseng hadn't been lunging toward him at all - instead, he held Aeris in his grip, one arm tight across her throat and the muzzle of his gun nestled in her chestnut hair.

Aeris clutched at the wrist across her neck and looked out at everyone wild-eyed as Avalanche raised their weapons again. Sephiroth read Tseng clearer than that. With Aeris in his grip, he stared level and cold at Sephiroth until Masamune's point had been lowered to the ground.

“Despite all the pageantry of your newfound convictions, it appears to me that you've changed very little,” Tseng continued. “Your methods are much the same. So is your self-righteous streak. I suppose it’s only natural. You’ve dealt with things the only way you know how. You fought the resistance three times as long as you were ever a part of it, but I’ll bet you sleep just as soundly as you always did. We always were quite good at that part of the job, weren’t we?”

This time, it was Barret who stepped forward, his voice even and his weapon half-raised.

"Just let her go, and get the hell out of here.”

"Gladly," Tseng answered tartly. “Good seeing you, Sephiroth. Take heart in the knowledge that there’s bound to be blood between us eventually. We can only be who we are, after all."

“Go,” Sephiroth spat. 

Tseng flashed a tight smile. The enemy line parted to let him and Aeris past, and he turned her to shield himself as they marched the distance to the cockpit. Once they had reached it, she felt the cold metal of the gun draw slowly away from her head. Still, even without looking, she was sure it couldn't be far.

"Aeris,” he said, his voice quieter now, meant only for her. “Are you sure this is the company you want to keep?”

Stiffly, she pulled against the bar of his arm held across her, her knuckles white around his wrist. It gave a little, and she swallowed hard, pressing her outrage into every syllable of her answer.

“You really think I’d go with you now?”

“No,” Tseng answered softly. “But the dream won’t last, and you need to think about what happens to you when it’s time to wake up."

"So what, you're warning me?"

"Yes, while I still have the chance to.” He paused. "You should come home, Aeris."

 _Home_ , he said, and it made her want to scream.

“I’ve made my decision," she answered sharply.

“Then be well, while you can." His arm loosened around her and slid away from her. She felt him hesitate, then press his hand to her shoulder and squeeze it gently. "Go on. I'll see you again.” 

Aeris held her head high as she walked away from him, paced and deliberate, through every muscle in her body screaming at her to run. She didn't turn back to look until she had reached Barret, who waited for her at the head of the group and welcomed her back to it by protectively throwing his good arm across her back. The helicopter's engine hummed to life. She let out a breath.

The wind rippled through the green grass as the vehicle took off and was gone, leaving only the quiet noises of the chocobos in its wake. Aeris watched the black dot recede into the blue sky, back toward the city from whence it came. When she lowered her eyes to the ground, she saw Sephiroth had turned his back without a word and headed toward the marshes.

* * *

The chocobo's powerful legs made a wet sucking noise as it pulled them from the mud and trampled forward through the peat. Aeris dug her knees tighter into its sides and pulled the reins in close. On either side of her, shadows skittered under the muddy surface. The swamp had a beauty to it, but it was overwhelmed with a sense of danger, made sharper by the trepidation already simmering in her. She told herself it was just nerves, that she was still rattled from earlier. The swamp told her otherwise.

"No Zoloms yet," said Yuffie dubiously.

"And no Sephiroth," Aeris frowned.

"He'll be fine," Barret grunted. Seated in front of him with his claws sunk into the saddle, Red said nothing, focused on not tumbling into the muck. They pressed deeper into the marsh in silence.

Aeris smoothed a hand along the side of her bird's neck. It whistled low in response. The gesture soothed her as much as it did the bird. To think that a few hours ago her most pressing concern had been figuring out how to ride without falling out of the saddle. She hadn't expected to see Tseng again so soon, and nor had she wanted to - especially not like that. Their timing had been lucky enough to win them a rare show of mercy, but that disturbed her as well.

She had been stupid. She should have realized he'd have no qualms about using her as a human shield, while she tried to settle things on his behalf no less. At the door of the helicopter, she hadn't been certain he'd let her go again. But it was just like him, wasn't it? Ruthless, true to his word… and sincere towards her, somehow, no matter how much more difficult it made everything else. Sephiroth would have had all the right in the world to press forward over his lifeless body, and it still bothered her enough that she tried to stop it. Though, not as much as it bothered her that Sephiroth had put her on the line for it.

Aeris sighed. Best to just focus on moving forward.

"Whoa, easy!"

Yuffie’s chocobo squawked and bucked sharply as it crested the hill. It pranced nervously on the spot, but Yuffie was as an experienced rider as she claimed to be and calmed it quickly. Still, Aeris felt her own bird's feathers ruffle nervously.

"Something spooked it, I gu— ah, shit."

Aeris looked nervously at Barret, who looked grimly ahead as the both of them drew forward.

There was no question as to what had spooked the bird. The lightning storm brewing in the distance did nothing to help matters, but the true culprit was the tall, barren tree standing at the edge of the marsh - and the snake's head that had been driven violently through the top of its twisted branches. The creature twitched and seeped, the life running out of it as it flexed its powerful and useless jaws. Poisonous ichor and dark blood oozed out of its broken body and ran into the water below.

Sephiroth waited for them in the shallows, snake blood lapping at his boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sticking with 1997 future-tech only or else Tseng would 100% have a juul.
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive and Nautilusopus for helping me workshop this chapter!


	18. Stones in the Road

“I thought you were past defending Shinra.”

The words were the only acknowledgement Sephiroth gave Aeris as he strode rigidly onward through the old mining tunnel, gaze fixed dead ahead. He moved with stubborn urgency, in great stiff strides. Clearly, he meant to carry himself farther and faster from the conversation he did not want to be having - but Aeris was more stubborn still. Already offended by his behaviour, it only offended her further that she had to hurry alongside him to keep up with his gait. His dismissive attitude rankled her, but it did nothing to deter her. She stomped forward in double-time.

“We’re not even _talking_ about Shinra! We’re talking about the— the _tree_ out there!” There was force in her voice. It carried into her body when she stabbed an accusing finger back toward the mouth of the cave, past where Barret, Yuffie and Red trailed along after the two of them at enough of a distance to avoid the heated argument. The image of the dead tree, its stark branches staked through the skull of the Zolom, rippled through everyone's mind regardless. Aeris watched Sephiroth’s expression for any response. It remained as unchanging as the stone.

“I see,” he said dryly. “You’re defending the Zolom, then. You’re quick to advocate for anything that wants to hurt you.”

“And you’re awfully quick to just— just—” 

Colour rose in Aeris’ face. She groped for just the incisive words she needed to make her point, her mind running wild through her memory in search of it. It skated through images of the gaping wound in Cloud’s midsection, past the crunching wet smack of the President’s head against the tarmac, and threaded the feeling of both of them through to the way he had surged at Tseng, refusing to let him go. She scarcely needed to imagine what Sephiroth had wanted to do to him. His reputation and his blade had preceded him from the moment they had met, and she’d seen it enacted on every single person who had put their body between him and what he wanted, regardless of why they were in his way. The threads all knotted together, like the contorted snake twitching around the tree, into something she _knew_ , but couldn’t quite articulate.

She looked up sharply and started over, abandoning the word she’d been hunting for. 

“Defending yourself is one thing, but what you did out there — It’s impulsive, and it’s excessive, and it’s cruel, and—”

For emphasis, she counted the points off on her fingers and came up short again on the final one. The incomplete list was enough; Sephiroth stopped abruptly. He turned to face her fully and looked down at her with cold eyes and squared shoulders, restrained ire obvious in the coiled tension of his body.

“It reminds them who they’re dealing with,” he said to her in a low voice. 

"— It’s got _nothing_ to do with the Zolom,” Aeris completed her thought in a burst. His eyes narrowed, but she met them easily. “It’s about _you_. You're being reckless. You’re being _vicious_."

“To our enemies.”

“It’s a _snake_ , not an enemy!” Aeris threw her hands up in exasperation. “It doesn’t know how to be anything else!”

"Apparently, neither do I, if you take Tseng’s word for it."

He said it in derisive undertone, turning his head to the side to look back at the cave wall. It gave Aeris pause.

"Is that what this is about?" she asked slowly, a new piece clicking into place.

"No,” he said firmly. “It's about enemies that can't be anything other than what they are. Zoloms or Shinra, it makes no difference. They need to be put down. The Planet will be better for it."

“What are you talking about? The Zolom wouldn’t have hurt us if we’d all just passed through on chocobo-back, and Shinra is just… people. People change all the time.”

“Do they?" He asked sharply, glaring down at her again. "I suppose if Tseng tells you he’s ‘changed’ the next time you meet, you’ll believe him just as readily as you did this time.”

His words did more than needle her. They slid deep under her skin, piercing farther than he could have known. No idea — he had no idea what he was talking about when it came to her and Tseng and what she believed. Nothing about standing up for herself had been easy, and even with that door firmly shut behind her, there was still nothing easy about seeing Tseng again. He’d been as she’d known him best - vague and calculating and sincere and dangerous and always, always ready to turn on her. She'd never take him solely at his word again, and for one of the few constants in her life, accepting that had been hard enough to bear.

And Sephiroth had the audacity to look down his nose at her, self-righteous and petulant, after nearly costing her the freedom that her acceptance of the truth had won. She felt her temper rise and saw something in his bearing shift in response to it.

“Did it really surprise you, that when _you_ moved to attack, he pointed the gun at _me_?” She demanded slowly, sharply stung and illustrating as much with every word. “I know you saw it. You don't miss things like that. So what did you think would happen? Did you think that after such an open threat, he’d just — what, face you down one-on-one? I’m just lucky he _was_ telling the truth about letting us go this time. But you didn’t believe he was, did you? So why, when he had his gun pointed at _me_ , did you pick a fight?

“Because all you thought about was ‘ _he’s Shinra’,_ and to hell with everything else, right? Did it piss you off _that_ much that we were going to let him go? Even though it was clearly in our best interests?” Aeris looked away briefly and finished with a bitter note. “I guess it must have.”

There was silence for a moment as she looked up at him again in challenge. Sephiroth frowned back at her, thinking. Something in what she said had registered, that much was clear, but he remained as unyielding as the sheer rock.

"You don't seem to grasp what must be done,” he argued, approaching at a different angle now, but with no less vehemence. “Shinra isn’t going to stop without being forced."

"What has that got to do with anything, and why do you keep making this about me? Everyone else could tell that letting him go was the right call."

"And everyone else was ready for another outcome. You weren't.” He moved closer, leaning into the point he had been circling. “As soon as you saw him, you weren’t. You rushed in, and you put yourself between us. He saw you falter, and he took advantage."

"Is that what you think?" She stepped towards him, one hand balled into a fist and pressed against her chest. "You know what? Letting him go was the best option for all of us, but you’re right. I wasn't ready to see him die. But just because I’m not eager to kill people I've known all my life, that doesn’t mean I’m naive about how Shinra works. I’ve _dealt_ with how Shinra works. I know first-hand how cruel it is, and how much they can take from a person. You've got no idea how I feel about it, and you can quit telling me how I _should_ feel about it, because the fact is, I'm not the one who keeps letting my feelings get the better of me!"

Aeris turned so sharply that her braid whipped against her back as she stormed onwards alone. Red appeared at her side before too long, in a show of silent solidarity, and to join the vanguard for dealing with any monsters ahead. Sephiroth, though, stayed somewhere distantly behind her. From all the effort she had spent keeping up with his pace, she could be certain that he fell behind by choice.

* * *

With a stone in her stomach, Tifa hurried along the polished hallway. Her furious jab at the elevator call button was the most strenuous thing she had done that day, but somehow, just being in that studio had her body feeling more leaden than hours of relief work ever did. Returning to the Shinra building brought back fragmented memories of the night of the — she didn’t know what to call it anymore. “Tragedy” was what her interviewer kept saying, three syllables to encompass the looming thing casting its shadow over the whole of her life. "Survivor" was the word they used for her. It ran in a marquee under her name whenever they re-aired that grainy footage from— how long ago now? She wasn’t sure. It was hard to keep track of anything anymore.

The interview invitation came yesterday, though, she remembered that. She also remembered that she hadn’t been so sure that it was a good idea, but they promised they would give her air-time to solicit much-needed supplies and volunteers for cleanup in the slums, where Shinra aid was spread too thin to reach. They'd also offered to pay her for the appearance. If she ever wanted to stop coasting on Cloud’s generosity, then she was in no position to turn down the gil. She had her doubts, but she brushed them aside. They surged back full-force when, only a few questions in, her interviewer started speculating about whether the Zero-SOLDIER had been a teen heartthrob back in their quaint little mountain town.

They'd gotten to more than her old coworkers by now. Someone in Nibelheim had been more than happy to speak to some newshound with a vapid story. More than happy to fork over old photos of her, too. Her bright, pretty smile only played up the tragedy - and the gossip. She wished that Cloud had been there in the studio to share in her indignation. Maybe just to help her maintain it. Nibelheim being as it was, it was hard to fault whoever had decided to trade gil for her privacy. She had much less trouble faulting the interviewer that peppered her with insipid questions and heavy-handed sympathy for the whole broadcast. It was equally easy to fault herself. This was yet another one of those times when she should have listened to that little voice that knew better.

Angrily, she stabbed the down button with her finger a few more times. Cloud was in the building somewhere, and she had half a mind to go and find him. She played the fantasy out in her head, where a far bolder version of herself had no qualms about interrupting his workday and hauling him down to the studio to back her up while she gave the crew a piece of her mind. In reality, Tifa had many qualms. Chief among them, the anxious feeling brewing in her chest that insisted she get out of this horrible building as quickly as possible. The elevator arrived, no faster for her insistence, and she hurried on to it.

The doors closed behind her. The elevator seemed so much smaller than she remembered. More closed in. Like the slabs of concrete that used to be her apartment building, pressing in on her, blacking out the fires outside. Tifa sucked in her breath and held it. Outside of the floor to ceiling windows that she now associated with money and the appearance of good taste, she could make out the remains of Sector 7, languishing under the burnished red sky. What passed for sunset in Midgar only reminded her more of the fire. She let out the breath, pulled in another one, noticed that it came and went too quickly, as did the one after that. Her fingers felt hot and her eyes were starting to sting.

Tifa decided to take the stairs instead.

The elevator stopped before she could hit the button for the next floor. When the doors opened, an older man in a blue jacket was standing behind them. He stuck a gloved hand out to hold the door for her as she hurried by him, each breath still too quick and too shallow.

“Hey — Tifa? Tifa Lockhart, right?”

Tifa stopped and looked back. It took her a few moments to register the grizzled face looking back with concern. The unlit cigarette wedged between his lips jogged her memory.

“Oh — Captain Highwind.”

“Just Cid’ll do. But you ain’t looking so good,” he said, eyeing her up and down. Out here in the open hall, the tightness in her chest had already loosened by a few stitches, but she figured he was probably right. “Look, uh, I saw what happened, and I’ve seen you and your heart of gold on the TV ever since. Condolences ain’t worth shit, so I’ll spare you, but there’s no shame in being shaken up. Let me give you a hand here.”

She was planning to tell him that she was fine, and she wasn’t all the way sure why she didn’t. Maybe because he knew that condolences weren’t worth shit, or because he’d already helped her once before, or because he didn’t seem like the kind who’d try to help her by getting her to talk. Maybe she was just getting tired of telling people she was fine. Whatever it was, Tifa drew in as deep a breath as she could before her answer.

“I just wanna find the stairs and get out of here.”

With a swift nod, Cid led her past signs indicating various subdivisions of Shinra’s space department, toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. He scanned his keycard at the door reader and followed her onto the landing. On the thirty flights down, Cid kept a careful eye trained on her while he grumbled casually about his work, the weather, and the world going to hell in a handbasket. Fifteen stories in, he was panting more than grumbling, and she was slowing down to wait for him rather than the other way around. Outside the doors of the front lobby, they were both gulping for lungfuls of air, and spent a few minutes drawing them in under the overhang.

“Cigarette?” Cid offered as soon as he had his breath, proffering his battered pack. “Good for stress. And it can’t be any worse for you than living in Midgar.”

“I’m good,” Tifa shook her head through the temptation. “But — thank you.”

Cid grunted an acknowledgement as the end of his cigarette flared to life. He didn’t seem to think much of it, but this was the second time he’d stepped in to help her, and the second time the random act of kindness had been worth more than he probably knew.

“Um, today’s probably not great," Tifa asked, twisting her hands together, "but can I buy you a coffee some time? As a thank-you for being so nice to me.”

Cid squinted at her like she'd sprouted a third eye. Smoke puffed out of his mouth when he laughed, the sound coming out as rusty as the rest of him.

“I prefer tea.”

* * *

“Cid Highwind?” Cloud shrugged, the phone pinched between his shoulder and his cheek. “Yeah, I know him. He’s a grouch, but good people. You should go. Probably be good for you.”

“Okay,” Tifa’s voice came through the line, a little less tightly wound than it had been moments before. “I’ll call him after this, I guess. Are you going to be back here soon?”

“Not sure yet, but don't worry about me. Get yourself something to eat. You sure you're alright, Tifa?”

"Yeah — sort of — I don't know. I’ll tell you more about it later. I just need to crash for a while."

"Right… Okay. Take care, then."

Tifa said the same before she hung up. Cloud stayed and listened to the low note of the dial tone for a moment, wrestling pangs of guilt. With some reluctance, he set his phone down on the desk in front of him and pulled his attention back to the man across from it.

Normally immaculate, Reeve’s expansive desk was newly home to a teetering pile of manila folders and a dizzying array of sticky notes. Each one came with a deadline and contained a reminder of something to follow up on, some situation that demanded attention before the burst sewage pipe hit the fan. Some of them would inevitably be missed, but the thing Cloud liked about Reeve, the thing that made him stand out from the rest of Shinra’s top brass, was that he tried to fix anything at all.

“Sorry,” Cloud murmured, and Reeve nodded generously from behind his desk.

“It’s no trouble,” he said. “I needed a moment to think, anyway. Tell me - who else knows what really happened? That Sephiroth... 'co-operated', and that you and Avalanche tried to stop the plate from falling?”

“Nobody,” said Cloud. “Just you. I only told you. I’m not even supposed to know we were the ones who blew the plate. The Professor probably wouldn't care that I let him go, but Tseng...” Cloud's hands clenched into fists where they rested on his thighs. He didn't want to think about that bastard. It had been his team that set the charges and he still strolled around the building like the horrific act didn't bother him in the slightest. By contrast, Reeve looked as haunted as Cloud felt whenever the subject was broached. Probably why he’d wound up in his office. 

With his hands folded on his desk in front of him, Reeve bowed his head in silence. Cloud’s confession had come as a surprise, and he was still weighing its significance.

“Thank you, Cloud,” he said, finally. “For trusting me with this.” He lay one hand over his chest in a show of sincerity. “I mean that, truly. We both need allies through this madness if we’re to change anything.”

The weight in Cloud’s chest lessened at that. Unburdening his secret had helped, but so did the notion of change. They could do that, couldn’t they? They were powerful, now, both him and Reeve, and power meant they could change things. They could keep an atrocity like the platefall from happening again - maybe even keep it from happening in a place like Wutai. They could put Cloud back where he was meant to be. Cloud wasn’t sure how, but felt that Reeve was bound to have some idea. He looked up at him hopefully. 

“The other executives... Did they side with you? Did they try to stop Rufus?”

Reeve's frown deepened.

“No, I’m afraid they didn’t."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth's pretty sure that he's never done anything wrong, ever, in his life?
> 
> Also, if you're thinking "Is that a The Number I reference?", the answer is yes.
> 
> Thanks to Nautilusopus and la_regina_scrive for looking at drafts of these scenes. Thanks additionally to JamesFirecat for suggesting some very solid post-publishing edits!


	19. Binaries

The china cup clinked against its chipped saucer as Tifa set her tea down. It was a comfortably domestic sound, one she hadn't heard since halcyon afternoons spent with aunties in the village. As Tifa got older, those afternoons had become fewer, more unpleasant. Her neighbours listed the names of those who were gone and advised her every which way on whether she ought to leave, too. Cid leaned across the table and refilled her cup from the steaming pot, keeping any opinion he might have about her situation to himself. He was a gruff man, but made for a curiously hospitable one.

By his invitation, Tifa found herself at a small table next to the squat fence in Cid's backyard, admiring the first grassy lawn she'd seen since she embarked for Neo-Midgar six months back. The sun was bright and warm in just the way she had been missing and even the air itself was lighter than she remembered. Although she had never been to Rocket Town before, the place felt soothingly, intimately familiar. She could even see the far side of the Nibel mountains, fading blue into the distance behind the teetering spacecraft that gave the town its name.

"I didn’t think there'd actually be a rocket," Tifa confessed.

"There shouldn't be," Cid said, looking the leaning No. 26 up and down over the brim of his teacup. When he set his cup down, he plucked his lit cigarette out of the ashtray on the table and wedged it between his lips. "Sure you don't want one? Out here in the fresh air, you can smoke as much as you want."

Tifa smiled and shook her head. With her chin propped up on her hand, she gazed beyond the weathered picket fence to the jagged mountain range and drifted briefly into memories of its winding trails, so many of them known only to her.

"Said you're from Nibelheim, right?" Cid asked, observing the pang of not-quite-homesickness that had struck her. "Sure you didn't want to stop by?"

"I'm sure. I don't... think I'm really ready to see it again. Not just yet."

Cid grunted. She couldn't be sure he understood what she meant, but suspected that he might. Rocket Town reminded her enough of Nibelheim, both in its pastoral charm and in its melancholy, that she figured he knew how suffocating it could be. A patina of rust and neglect formed over everything here, from the leaning rocket to the aging people. It marked this place as an old company town, momentarily beloved and then forgotten, eking out survival well past its own usefulness.

When the Highwind docked, Cid's crew had been waiting for them. Tifa had seen some of them before on the voyage to Midgar, but this time she had a closer look at them. It made her understand a little better why Cid had invited her in the first place. All the men and women of his crew were her age, and though they were perfect strangers, she recognized them, too. They were her. They were her neighbours. If they had been born on the other side of the mountain where there was no meagre mechanics industry holding on for dear life, all of them would have left in their teens to join the military.

Nibelheim had no Cid; their hometown hero rarely put in appearances. It only convinced the people there of what they already knew: that the only way to make it was to leave and join up with Shinra. Even then, it wasn't a sure thing. They could abandon you just as easily as they abandoned sister towns on opposite sides of the mountain, once brimming with all the promises of a gleaming rocket and a state-of-the-art reactor. Just as easily as they left the homeless and desperate victims of the plate’s collapse to scrape by on their own, unless they happened to live on the right side of the disaster.

A part of her had felt so guilty for being one of the lucky ones who made it out of Nibelheim. As it turned out, it had brought her nowhere, except to the far side of the mountains on an acquaintance's pity. She picked up her teacup, but eyed the cigarettes.

"Thank you again for bringing me. It's nice to be outdoors again - I mean, really outdoors."

"No trouble," Cid puffed. "Maintenance trip was booked anyway, and I've still got business with the Shinra brass in Midgar. Not to mention, I'll be ferrying all of 'em and their big brass band to that damned party in Junon."

"The welcoming ceremony, right?" Tifa said, sounding doubtful. "There's going to be a memorial for Sector 7, so I'm going too."

"Is there now?" Cid mused. "First I've heard of it. Not that they tell me nothin', 'cept 'fly here, bring troops there, don't mind the girls in cages we're bringing on your damn ship.'" Shaking his head, Cid traded the cigarette for the teacup again. "Dunno what's wrong with me, to keep putting up with all this."

He looked out to the rocket again, and Tifa looked with him in silence for a few moments.

"Do you think it'll be any different? With Rufus in charge, I mean?"

"No," said Cid. "Not really. But a man can dream. And you gotta hold onto your dreams."

  
  


* * *

  
  


It was obvious that Yuffie knew her way around a deck of cards. It hadn't seemed quite as obvious when Aeris had agreed to the 100 gil buy-in. She watched warily as the younger girl artfully shuffled her beat-up deck and dealt both their hands out onto the tent floor. Red, curled up near the entrance, watched as well. He had declined to join in on a betting game, but the competition piqued his interest anyway. 

“Grandfather plays this game,” he observed, his head moving to and fro as the hands were dealt. “He says I wouldn’t be very good at it, even if I could hold the cards myself.”

“Don’t worry, Red," Aeris offered cheerfully, taking up her hand. "Most people aren’t very good at it.”

“Are you?” Yuffie asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not bad. There’s not a lot of stuff to do in Shinra Tower.” She delivered both understatements quite nonchalantly.

“Lot of gil, though. You clean ‘em out?” Yuffie pressed, still sizing up her opponent.

“When they deserved it,” Aeris shrugged.

"Hmmm. Well, let's see how this goes." 

Deftly and absently, Yuffie fished out 100 gil of her own, collecting many small coins out of many different pockets on her person. Most of them were concealed. It occurred to Aeris that some of the pockets weren’t bad places to conceal cards, either. Yuffie considered her hand for a moment, then counted out an odd fraction of the 100 gil to push into the center of the space between them. In front of Aeris were four 25 gil pieces. She pushed one forward.

They eyed each other through the first round and ended it quickly, with Aeris scooping the pot toward her.

“Heh. Not often I get a real challenger,” said Yuffie.

“It’s just a friendly game,” Aeris answered mildly. She collected the cards, squared the deck, and started to shuffle. In a better mood, she might have matched Yuffie's competitive spirit. That was probably something she should have considered before she agreed to play for gil, but however their game turned out, it would at least be good for taking her mind off of things.

“It’s still buggin’ you, huh?” Yuffie asked as she picked up the cards Aeris dealt her.

“Nope.” Aeris fanned her own hand and studied the cards in it serenely.

“You’re a pretty good liar,” Yuffie continued conversationally. “That asshole in the suit - you know him, right? Is he Wutain?”

Aeris straightened the Jack of Diamonds in her hand and grimaced.

“I don’t know. He never talked about it.” He never talked about a lot of things.

“Guess he wouldn’t, that far up the Shinra ranks. No _real_ Wutain would ever sell out like that, you know. Bet his family disowned him. Or maybe they’re just a whole clan of snake-faced backstabbers with no pride.” Yuffie looked up at Aeris over her cards. “Gonna bet?”

“Oh, right,” Aeris murmured. She pushed another gil piece into the pot. 

“Think he would have shot you?”

“Of course,” Aeris answered crisply. “Not in the head, though. Likely the shoulder. Somewhere non-lethal. Whatever created enough chaos to get what he wanted.”

“How horrible,” said Red.

“Sorry - didn’t mean to be morbid.”

“How’d you know he wasn’t gonna fight us, then?” asked Yuffie.

“Tseng is... complicated,” Aeris concluded, a tired note in her voice. She dealt them each another card.

“I’ll raise,” said Yuffie, and pushed more coins into the pot. “Seph’s complicated, too,” she added. Aeris looked up fleetingly, then studiously back down at her hand. “Wanna know what I think?”

“It’s really up to you if you’d like to share, Yuffie,” Aeris said, throwing another coin into the middle.

“I’m sure she’ll tell us anyway,” said Red, most correctly.

"I mean, yeah, he needs to get a grip and all,” Yuffie ploughed ahead, “But you wanna know the truth? It’s kinda sad, but this stuff doesn't really bother me anymore. Like, it's gross at first, and when I think about it, but it's pretty easy to just... not think about. Maybe it's 'cause I grew up with the war and all. You get so used to seeing stuff torn up, people included, when they’re burning down another occupied village every couple of months. Guess _he_ grew up with the war too, on the wrong side of it, so maybe that’s why he’s like that.

“But growing up with the war also means I just can't feel bad about dead Shinra anymore. We all learned the same lessons. There's no winning anything without getting your hands dirty, you know? So you get your hands dirty and then you move on, ‘cause that’s what surviving and fighting back and changing the world is all about. Makes sense to me."

Aeris fingered the Jack of Spades while she considered Yuffie's thoughts with a frown.

"Not that I’d ever gut a snake for cheap thrills, but my hinges aren’t as loose as his," Yuffie added. "Wouldn’t be that surprising if he went totally postal one of these days.”

What Aeris thought, too, was bubbling unpleasantly back into her mind.

"I don't like it,” said Red. “Two-legged people always lack respect for lives unlike their own, but I'd expect better from a Cetra - some sense of the long view."

“Oh, it's messed up for sure, Red. I don't like it either,” Yuffie continued. She turned back to Aeris. “Don’t like that you wound up with a gun to your head, either. It sucks, but if it weren’t _you_ \- he likes you, you know, maybe even more than he likes me - he’d probably have risked an attack, just to finish the Turk bastard. No offense and all, but I get that, too. A lot of people back home might do the same. We're lucky, out here on our little road trip. The fight's everything to the people who live it every day."

Aeris’ hand was a pair of Jacks. She was silent as she considered them. The fight was everything, or the company orders were. She already knew what it was to be _liked_ enough to survive, but not without being endangered. She also knew what it was like to put her trust in somebody that understood some slice of her life that she could never manage to share with anybody else, only to later realize there had never been any good reason for that trust in the first place. Her eyes moved back and forth from Diamond to Spade. She lifted her head.

“Shouldn’t we show?” Aeris asked through a tight smile.

“Oh, yeah,” said Yuffie, and put her cards down next to the face-up pile. All of them were spades.

Aeris threw down her cards and pushed the rest of the money toward Yuffie.

“Just take it,” she sighed.

“Really? Well, if you’re sure,” said Yuffie brightly.

Red looked from Yuffie, raking the pot of gil towards herself with both hands, to Aeris, gazing moodily into the middle distance. He had the sense that he might have missed something. 

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “we could switch to Go Fish?”

* * *

Sephiroth fed kindling to the fire. The flames snapped and spat back at him in reward for his carelessness, and he cursed it under his breath. He had been looking sullenly toward the tents rather than watching what he was doing. Shaking sparks from his gloves, he looked on them damningly instead.

Opposite him, Barret took over tending the flame. With patience and a steady hand, he used a sturdy branch to turn the logs, ensuring a solid structure for the burn before he added anything more to it. He fed the kindling slowly, and the fire crackled pleasantly in his care. Sephiroth watched him work just as resentfully. Barret looked up at him with his eyebrows raised.

“She’s right about the Zolom, you know,” Barret said. “Come on, don’t give me that look. You know it, too, somewhere in there. And anyway, I’m not judging. I don't got the right.”

Sephiroth lowered his eyes to the fire, quietly burning along with it. Even if he considered what Barret said, he arrived at the same conclusion he'd reached at the end of their argument.

“She doesn’t understand.” 

“Maybe. I don’t know about that,” Barret answered. “She’s got as much reason as any of us to understand. And even when she’s good and ready to join the resistance proper, she’ll still be right about the Zolom.”

He watched the fire flicker. It had been easy. He struck before the snake did, driving his sword through its bleeding belly as it snapped and thrashed in the reddening marsh water. The tree itself was hard to remember - it had simply come next, a smooth flow of thought into action into feeling. A dim satisfaction was the most that he could recall. It had quieted his thoughts and took the edge out of having to wait there in the shoals for the rest of them. If it was so wrong, and if he knew it somewhere as Barret claimed, then it certainly didn’t feel that way. It mainly felt irksome and persistent, like the stuttering hum of broken lab equipment.

“Ever heard of a man called Dyne, back in Wutai?”

Sephiroth looked up. While he had been thinking, Barret had moved. He knelt in the grass, his good arm rummaging through the pack with their camping supplies.

“No,” Sephiroth said.

“Dyne was Marlene’s daddy, and an old friend,” Barret began, fishing a piece of cookware out of the pack. There was something rueful in the smile that he wore as he worked, and it gave Sephiroth an idea of how this story would end. “See, I wasn’t the only one who got his arm shot off by Shinra scum back in Corel. Wasn’t the only one fool enough to go turning myself into a weapon, either. Guess it makes sense that we’d think the same, since the two of us went way back. 

“I had no idea he made it, though. Thought for sure if he had, he’d have come straight back for Marlene. Only found out about a year ago, some fresh new face to the resistance started shooting straight through his squad to kill as many Shinra as possible.”

“I heard about that,” Sephiroth recalled.

“Yeah, well, that was Dyne. He went rogue and holed up in the canyon not long after that, so I went and paid him a visit. The way he saw it, his old life was gone. There was nothing left in the new one but killing the Shinra, and anybody who ever tried to help ‘em.

“That meant me, too.” Barret’s voice took on a bitter note as he reached this part of the story. “We grew up like brothers. Didn’t make a difference. He didn’t think twice about putting a bullet in me for agreeing to that goddamned reactor. Told me he was finally gonna go back for Marlene, too, and send her to be with her mother.”

“Did you kill him?” Sephiroth asked blandly, figuring he’d cut to the chase.

“Yeah,” Barret answered soberly. “Wasn’t my shot that did it, though. I fought him ‘til he had to listen to me. Then I told him it didn’t have to be like this. Told him to think about the cause, think about Marlene and her future. He did. Then he put a bullet in his head.”

Barret stopped what he was doing. He looked out to the grey clouds deepening on the horizon for a few moments, as though for a minute he could glimpse his own grief swirling into them. He shook his head as he turned back to the packs, pulling open the food supplies.

"I feel for Aeris. It ain't easy facing down someone you know like that, no matter how fucked up they are. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. Dyne put a lot of lead in me before I was ready to fight back. But you either give up and die, or you do what needs to be done. Aeris might still be working that out, or she might be coming to terms with knowing it already. You're right that she can't afford to get soft, but from what I've seen? She's holding up alright, and that Turk bastard gave her plenty of reason not to slip now.”

It was, Sephiroth granted, hard to imagine Barret hesitating. It was also hard to imagine anyone from his history that might put him in the same position. A few names and faces rose through his memory, only to be swiftly dismissed. If they stood against him, there was no decision left to be made, was there? Then he thought about Aeris again, throwing her arm suddenly across his body in defense of Tseng. Not nearly the same, but he had to admit it had given him some sort of infuriating, quizzical pause.

“Shinra’s destroying this world, and all the people in it,” Barret continued. He caught Sephiroth’s eye, and the grave sincerity in his expression held it. “Our fight’s a good fight. Our anger’s worth holding on to. But it can burn you up, sure as anything. You gotta figure out how you’re gonna hold on to yourself.”

“How?” Sephiroth asked, his eyes narrowed doubtfully.

“Man, I don’t know. I’m still working it out,” said Barret. Sephiroth scoffed quietly as he turned back to the pack. “But when it gets dark, I know there’s a lot of people I gotta be here for when the morning comes. No choice _but_ to figure it out. Truth is, you help me with that. You been reminding me where the line's gotta be if I ever want to come up and have a life again."

Mute as the stump he was sitting on, Sephiroth turned that thought over in his mind. He decided eventually that whether or not he agreed, he didn’t much care for it.

“Here,” said Barret, approaching him with a cast iron skillet. “It’s Aeris’ turn. Seeing as how you almost got her kidnapped earlier, I’d say you owe her this much.”

He stared at the pan as though it had insulted him somehow. With his mouth twisted into a disdainful frown, and with the smallest grunt of displeasure, Sephiroth reached up and took the handle anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the group chat for adjudicating what 90s slang Yuffie should be allowed to use. We tried valiantly to come up with a not-dated way for her to say "I'm not a fucking simp, Red" but I'm not sure we succeeded.
> 
> The Jack of Diamonds and Jack of Spades here correspond to the Knight of Pentacles and Knight of Swords, respectively.
> 
> And yes, that's a Vagrant Story reference.
> 
> Happy new year everybody!


	20. Storm and Song

He woke to a dream. A woman’s scream ricocheted through his mind, resounding with mourning and fury, until the echoes died away into the sounds of the waking world around him. Rain pattering against the canvas of the tent; a distant roll of thunder; Barret snoring. Sephiroth stared up into the gloom, the twin lights of his eyes cutting through the darkness. He rolled his head to the side, watching Mako green gleam off the cold steel of the Masamune. Barret snored louder. With a sharp sigh, he sat up from his bedroll, pulled on his coat and gloves, and took the blade firmly in hand.

The full, earthy scent of rain struck him as soon as he stepped out of the tent. What he planned to do out there in the early hours of the morning, he did not know. Secure the perimeter, perhaps, from robins hunting worms and mandragoras hunting field mice. Perhaps he’d follow the drifting storm toward the horizon. It was still far from their camp, but he held a hand up to shield his eyes from falling rain and peered across the jutting silhouettes of oaks and pines into the bruised purple sky beyond. A bolt of lightning flashed silver through it, illuminating the night. Something unexpected caught his eye, and in the rumble of thunder that followed, he set out cautiously toward it.

Aeris sat curled under the aegis of an old linden tree, its heart-shaped leaves shuddering softly in the wind. With her arms wound around her knees and her chin perched on top of them, she listened to the pealing thunder and watched tongues of lightning flicker in the far-off sky. Her jacket was missing, and her hair flowed loose across her bare shoulders, down her back. It brought his mind back to that day by the riverside, and across everything that had happened since. He started toward her, then stopped. A feeling of unwelcome intrusion gripped him. The rain beat against his shoulders as irritation with his own reticence took hold of him in turn. 

Just as he meant to turn back, she spotted him. With a start, she lifted her head from her knees and looked back over her shoulder. Finding no stalking beast in the night behind her, her posture relaxed, though not completely. Even through the dark he could make out the lingering hesitance in her face. It melted away with a quiet sigh, and something in the sound of it cleared enough of the tension between them that he moved into the cover of the branches. 

“Storm wake you?” she asked lightly, tipping her head as she looked up at him. Her voice was tired, a bit scratchy. It gave away little else.

“Something like that,” he answered quietly.

“Nightmare?”

“... How did you know?”

“You just told me.” A toothy smile flickered across her face at her own cheek. It was gone as soon as it appeared. “I won’t ask, though. I don’t like talking about mine either.” She fell silent and turned her head back toward the sky. Sephiroth stood there, both arms stiff at his sides, until she looked back and cast her eyes over him. “Don’t loom,” she instructed, patting the patch of dry grass beside her in invitation, “Especially not with the sword.”

There were options. He could excuse himself for a patrol around the camp, or for a walk to burn off the sleepless midnight energy, or for nothing at all, if he really wanted to. He’d be alone until morning. Beholden to no-one. Past the shadow of the linden tree was a curtain of rain he could disappear into. He looked out into it as he sat down next to Aeris, laying the Masamune out on the grass on the other side of him. Even as he settled into the spot next to her, both of their bodies kept carefully to themselves, it was hard to say why he did.

He knew what was supposed to happen now. This was where an apology might go, if he were feeling at all sorry. There was some sense of remorse rattling loosely inside of him, the kind that wouldn't fit neatly or honestly into words, even if he were more inclined to try. It wouldn't be what she was looking for. It would have nothing to do with the Zolom, and even less to do with Tseng, who deserved all that could be brought to bear against him. No, the incongruous little fragment of regret had solely to do with her.

"I won't endanger you again," he offered, rigidly but truthfully. Beside him, Aeris looked at him sidelong, arching her brow.

"Good," she said decisively, after a moment to think it over.

The silence resumed, and the strain of it began to ease. Aeris lowered her chin to rest on her knees again, her hair brushing against the curve of her cheek in the warm breeze. As surreptitiously as he could, he searched her pale face for some sense of what she might be thinking. Discerning nothing, his shoulders slackened, and he looked out into the storm with her. The wind and rain joined together in a harmony around them, conducted by the irregular tempo of the thunder. A sudden aria followed. It came in the form of a lone songbird, trilling high in the linden tree. Aeris craned her head back to search for it among the branches, delight blooming on her face. 

“They sing in the night? And through the rain, too…” She smiled warmly and leaned back on one hand, still searching for the little bird. “I never knew.”

Her face softened as she listened to the melody. By now he’d seen it several times before, that look of quiet, appreciative wonder. Just as familiar was the flash of anger that shot through him at the sight of it, as sharp and sudden as the lightning. He couldn’t understand it, no more than he could understand why she’d have any hesitation at seeing one of her lifelong captors brought to swift and mortal justice. 

“Aeris.”

“Mm?”

“Why aren’t you angry?” The question expanded inside of him as he finally brought himself to ask it. “ _How_ aren’t you angry? How can you look and listen to all the simple, banal things they’ve kept from you all your life and be anything else? How can you let them leave in peace? Even when they come with threats to imprison you again?

“They took your mother, they took _pieces_ of you, they used you for their own ends and they’d kill you for them just as quickly. So how, _how_ can you discover another thing you never knew and just… smile?”

For moments stretched out to eons, Aeris considered his question. She lowered her eyes when they began to look worried, consulting with herself. When she lifted them again, the worry was something else, clement and piercing.

"Is that how you feel?" she asked him, gently enough to tell him that she already knew the answer.

“It’s what I _am!_ The Planet calls for vengeance, and my mother's voice cries out in agony, and neither can compare to what sounds in me and — I feel it, _all_ of it, down to my marrow. How can it even be a feeling any longer when it’s always there, always _burning._ Without it, I’d…” The intensity of his own bitterness caught in his throat and struck him silent. He turned his eyes away and stared down at his fist as he made and unmade it. When words found him again, he spoke them quietly, but with no less poison in his voice. “It’s the only gift they ever left me.”

“A... gift?”

“Nevermind.”

“No, tell me.” Aeris leaned in, trying to catch his eye beyond the white curtains of his hair. “Please.”

Slowly, he lifted his head again.

“It gives me purpose. It keeps me from turning away from the truth any longer. And it needs to be brought to bear against Shinra, to bring them to justice.” His fingers curled into a fist again, a roll of thunder underscoring his words. “They need to be made to burn with it, too.”

When he looked at Aeris, she was studying him with sharp eyes. With a small, thoughtful noise, she turned away before she delivered her conclusion.

“That can eat you alive.”

“If that’s what it takes,” Sephiroth answered ardently.

“So it’s a curse, too,” Aeris mused. Her tone was hard to place - dismissive amusement and thoughtful melancholy and bone-deep weariness all at once. “I know plenty about those kinds of gifts.”

It was his turn to pause and study her. As cryptic as she was being, he understood. A vital sliver of her meaning wedged into him at an odd and uncomfortable angle. It took him a moment to pry it out again.

“You didn’t answer my question.” 

“I guess I didn’t,” she shrugged, stretching her legs out on the dewy grass in front of her. “Not sure what to say, though. I get angry. I get plenty angry. _You_ should know that,” she added dryly.

“Not like you should,” he argued, his voice once again brimming with conviction. “Not for what you are, what you’ve seen.”

“What, just because I don’t feel the same as you?” she argued back. Though she stared hard at the grass rather than back at him, there was something rising in her voice. “It’s not like I don’t feel bad about—” she gestured vaguely in place of what she meant, “—everything, sometimes, but it’s not... Mostly it just makes me sad.”

“ _Sometimes_? Ridiculous. That’s all there is to it? How long have you suffered under them, and you _feel bad sometimes_?”

“Well, it’s better than sitting there and drowning in how I feel,” she snapped bitterly.

"Why is it better? How could it be wrong to hate them?” He demanded. “How could you feel anything else, when you look at what Shinra has done to the world?” He swept his arm out, gesturing to the rolling fields and woodlands, the stormy purple sky, the quaking linden leaves, at everything, and then at her. “At what they've done to _us_?"

"Don't you want to be _more_ than what was done to you?” She spoke louder, in the same aching tone that had pierced him earlier. Sincerity broke through her frustration and she lifted her eyes to his with pleading hope for an answer that might match her own. The words that followed seemed to flood out of her, faster than she could hope to dam them. “I get it, I _know_ , you do all these things just to survive, and then you keep doing them, even when… even when it doesn’t even make sense any more. I know. I _know_. I just…” she sighed, the last of the tailwind leaving her. “I just want to be more than what they made me.”

Her bangs fell into her eyes as she let out an unsteady breath. The silence that followed echoed resonant in his chest. A lick of white lightning flashed on the horizon. She lifted her face towards the light. Sephiroth watched as it embraced her for just a moment, silver and shimmering through a haze of rain. Velvet darkness settled around them in its wake, soft and deep and beckoning him to reach out through it.

“Then… are you?” he asked, gently enough to let her know he had already guessed the answer.

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not,” she sighed, plucking at blades of grass. “I want to keep going, so... I try not to think about it too much.”

“Why can’t you keep going if you think about it?” Sephiroth asked, peering keenly at her. “Does avoiding it help you, or them?”

The tight-lipped smile Aeris responded with had a guilty quality to it. It didn’t quite reach her eyes. She turned them back up to the tree boughs instead. High up, the little bird was still singing. 

“... I _was_ protecting him. I know that. And I know it was stupid, too, but I…”

Her voice broke off and he waited for her to finish. With a pinched expression, she looked for a moment like she had thought better of it, but dropped her eyes to the grass and kept speaking anyway.

“I don't really have a lot of people in my life. There’s only a few people who know me, deep down. Nobody’s really got the whole picture. Maybe not even me.” She laughed a little, though it wasn’t funny. “So yeah, it would have felt great to knock a few of his teeth loose with my staff, but... I didn't want Tseng to die. Because if he died, it's like he’d be taking a part of me with him, the pieces that only he knows. And it would be different from what others know. If _I_ died, the people I left behind - they could try to put all their pieces together, but maybe… maybe no one would know for sure who they’d lost.

“I’m probably not making any sense.” She laughed again, forced and sardonic, a sound to wash her own words away just as soon as she’d parted with them. “But I guess maybe this can be the piece you know about. You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you?”

“I can be,” he frowned. Her lips twitched into another smile, and it seemed more honest than the last.

“I thought it’d be different," Aeris continued, her posture relaxing. "Once I finally got the courage to leave Midgar, I mean. I thought I was finally changing a little."

“... I don’t think I can be anything else,” Sephiroth answered soberly,

“Worth trying though, isn’t it? It has to be.” She repeated it, summoning certainty to her voice. “It just has to.”

Was it? He tipped his head back, searching for the twittering bird among twisting branches, trying to make out what she’d seen. There was nothing but green and black and moonlight. Still, the bird was plainly singing. 

“... I let the Zero-SOLDIER go,” he told her, only faintly grasping why. “Back in Midgar. I could have killed him, but I didn’t.”

Aeris peered at him in surprise, blinking owlishly at him.

“When the plate was falling, you mean? What happened?”

“I don’t know," Sephiroth shook his head. "He said he could help. I don’t think I believed him. I can't believe _myself_ , letting him get away without answering for his sickening complicity. I can barely stand the thought of it, so I don’t know why I did it.” He sighed in resignation to his own failure. The bite of it receeded as he confessed what he'd done. He did know a little of why he did it, he thought, and looked down from the tree, back to the hills stretching away in front of them. Something she said had certainly played a part. “I suppose he _did_ help, in the end. Perhaps it wasn't so wrong.”

"Yeah,” she agreed, a bit vaguely. At a glance back, he caught the searching way she was watching at him, and eventually she seemed satisfied with what she found. Her hand brushed up against his as she laid it in the grass between them. “In a way, I'm glad I never had the chance to take the world for granted."

He glanced down at their hands only briefly.

"Why?"

"Because... How lovely it is to learn that birds sing through the dark.” Together, they listened to the bird and the night, the very same song now different from the first time they’d heard it. Aeris was smiling softly again. “Do you know the name of this one?"

"A song thrush," Sephiroth answered promptly. After an uncertain pause, he volunteered more. "Birdsong to greet the new day is called the dawn chorus. It's sung by hundreds of different species and begins well before first light, particularly during the spring and summer."

"The dawn chorus…” Aeris repeated, suitably impressed, and they listened together a little longer.

“Aeris?"

“Mm?”

“... Sorry,” Sephiroth murmured.

“Mm,” Aeris repeated. With a widening grin, she leaned back against the broad trunk of the linden. “So, have you picked out a favourite yet?"

Sephiroth leaned back along with her, a subtle smile of his own breaking on his lips. His eyes closed. The storm and the song swelled.

"This one's not bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Linden trees are associated with love, healing, and justice. In pre-Christian Germany, judicial meetings (and allegedly marriages) were held under the linden tree, as it was believed that the tree would help to unearth the truth and restore peace. The song thrush was picked for its distinctive and complex song, but if I knew about bird symbolism I'd be using that, too. Come for the fic, stay for the tree/bird facts?
> 
> Well, stay for the fic, too - 20 chapters! Thank you so much to everyone who has read, left comments or kudos, or otherwise supported the story along the way. This is one of those chapters I had in my head from very early on, so to actually reach it feels like such a milestone. I really hope you all enjoyed this one.
> 
> I've slid in a few references to the song I had on repeat for this chapter, The Lightning Strike by Snow Patrol. There's also a nod to a line from Estelle Bright of the Trails series (play these games).
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive and Nautilusopus for help proofreading and finishing this chapter.


	21. Fault Line

The morning after the storm settled in soft and gentle. Aeris slept through its arrival, with no more nightmares coming to visit her. When she woke and stepped blinking out into the daylight, the rest of the group had already gathered in the middle of their camp. They finished breakfast and tucked their things away and shared with one another an amenable quiet. It expanded to include her just as soon as she arrived.

"Morning," she smiled, feeling light as the day. 

"Good morning," Sephiroth affirmed, and it was.

They travelled half the day in good spirits, knowing that their next destination was close at hand. Fort Condor appeared on the horizon by mid-morning, and by the early afternoon they stood at its gates, craning their necks upward while they waited to be admitted.

"It's big," Aeris said bluntly. Words had failed her. She squinted against the sun at the massive bird nesting atop the tower.

"Big?!” echoed Barret. “That buzzard’s the size of the damn reactor! I thought ‘Fort Condor’ was just some kinda metaphor…"

"What's that one sound like, bird-man?" Yuffie asked, nudging Sephiroth with her elbow.

"Why in the world would I know?" he shot her a look, exasperated.

"Loud," Red explained in his place. “And resounding. I witnessed a pair flying over the canyon as a child. But there are so few of them left, now. They’re nearly as rare as I am.”

“You’re Avalanche, right?” asked the young gatekeep, casting a wary look in Sephiroth’s direction and a worried one in Yuffie’s. “No one told me Lady Kisaragi was travelling with you.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that. I keep telling people not to call me that.”

“Sorry, your... uh... Lady… ness. Er, follow me, please.”

Through the gates and along the winding, rough-hewn tunnels of the Fort’s interior, they followed the lookout past small bands of colourful revolutionaries young and old, chattering in the hallways. When they arrived at the makeshift command centre, the Fort’s general was waiting there to welcome them. He clasped Barret’s hand as warmly as an old friend, and though they had never met, Barret greeted him as a brother-in-arms in turn. 

“We received word from Wutai that the Midgar team was en-route,” he explained. “Your ship should arrive in a few day’s time.”

“We appreciate you putting us up in the meantime,” said Barret earnestly. “If we can help with the fight while we’re here, well, we’re armed and ready for it.”

“There’s no fight to be had at the moment,” he shook his head. “The Shinra have pulled back. Concentrated their forces in and around Junon while Rufus’ inauguration ceremony takes place.”

Barret glanced over his shoulder, where a grainy television with bent rabbit ears illustrated the occasion. Rufus’ grandiose address at a low volume had underscored the whole conversation, but until it was mentioned, only Sephiroth seemed to have noticed. He watched the broadcast with folded arms and stern reproach.

“Forgot that was happening today,” Barret muttered. 

Aeris wandered closer to the screen. Shinra’s new President raked a hand back through his hair and swept his arm outwards in a grand gesture, flags emblazoned with the Shinra logo billowing behind him. She ignored him, her eyes glued to the black and white captions marching along the bottom of the screen.

“He’s talking about Midgar,” Aeris frowned.

"’Bout us?" asked Yuffie, a shade too hopeful.

“No, I think he’s past all the blood and thunder stuff," Aeris answered. Her frown deepened as Rufus kept talking. “I guess I expected it, but I didn't think he’d just come out and say it like this.”

“Say what?” asked Barret.

Sephiroth answered before Aeris could, having picked out the key point despite the speech’s low volume:

“They're not rebuilding Sector 7."

* * *

"I'd like to begin by thanking President Rufus for inviting me to speak today."

Tifa’s hands shook against the podium. She had written too much to begin with, and on the heels of Rufus’ grand inaugural address, most of it was now pointless. Against blood-red banners bearing his name, the new President announced his plans for the future of the company, and for the future of Midgar: The relief plan that everyone trying to rebuild their meagre homes amidst heaps of concrete and twisted metal had been desperately longing to hear.

The plan was to abandon the people of Midgar.

“I’m very fortunate to be able to be here,” Tifa continued, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice as well, “And I've been very fortunate where many others have not. The people of Midgar have worked tirelessly towards recovery, through unimaginable, unbearable loss.”

In the streets down below, cadets marched in time to a brass band. President Rufus himself sat in the reserved section directly in front of the stage. With his own speech concluded, his role now was to play party to a procession of televised speakers singing his praises. Tifa had been brought here as one of them, meant to stand there in a beautiful dress and weep grateful tears. Her eyes stung with so many things, none of them remotely close to gratitude.

"Midgar is my future. For so many of the warm, generous people I have met, it was their past, their history, their family’s history. They have fought so hard to hold on to their treasured memories, to their homes, and to each other."

Her voice caught in her throat and her vision began to blur. Outrage throbbed behind her eyes at the thought of all the people she’d met, at the decision they’d now have to face: Accept the only aid Shinra would offer in the form of a one-way ticket to Neo-Midgar, or try to scrape by with whatever help other suffering strangers would offer. As Cloud's Public Security team pulled out of the area and the gil dried up, too many would be forced to “choose” the first.

She swallowed hard and lifted her eyes back to the VIP section. Rufus and the dark-haired Turk whispered with their heads bowed together, smirking through some private joke. The head of the military dozed in a seat beside them. The executive responsible for weapons development started on her third flute of champagne. The head of urban planning, at least, would deign to look at her, but she looked to the seat next to him where Cloud's unnaturally bright eyes were fixed on her with rapt attention. Leaning forward to the edge of his seat, he gave her a little nod through her pause.

Tifa found her breath again. The cameras were on her. Someone out there - maybe the people she had met in Midgar, or maybe a little girl in Rocket Town, looking for someone to acknowledge what she already knew was wrong - would be listening. 

"No matter what happens now,” Tifa said, “let’s all keep fighting."

* * *

Warm light dripped from antique crystal chandeliers decorating the ballroom. Polite youth in white gloves weaved their way through the illustrious crowd, drinks and delicacies balanced on their platters. Music and low conversation carried the spirit of carefree celebration through the air and out onto the dance floor. Tifa fit into the place about as well as the memorial for Sector 7's victims had fit into the rest of the day, squeezed uncomfortably between the military parade and the self-aggrandizing speeches. For a mercy, there were no more Shinra reporters here to fawn over the proceedings.

To avoid any more uncomfortable hobnobbing with an upper-crust guest list that had no idea how to make small-talk with her anyway, Tifa had abandoned the ballroom. Instead, she posted herself dourly in the venue's lobby. There was a television here. It recapped the day’s events, blow by horrible blow, and she couldn’t seem to resist drinking in its poison. "President Rufus' Announces Relief for Midgar Victims" ran in a banner along the bottom of the screen, the chosen title for the only segment of the day she had been foolish enough to care about. She watched the recording of Rufus taking the podium darkly. 

At the other end of the room, Cloud made his return from the open bar, an amber drink in each hand. He was smartly dressed in formal SOLDIER attire, pressed and tailored and with an assortment of esoteric pins decorating his chest. It didn’t suit him at all.

“Ah, Mr. Strife!” an older gentleman interjected as Cloud stalked across the room, moving with a slightly stiffer version of his usual bad posture.

“Hey,” said Cloud, with a brusque little nod.

“It’s truly a pleasure to see you again,” he gushed. “The two of us were just talking about you, in fact. Tell me, Mr. Strife, have you met my associate?” 

The man gestured to the companion standing next to him. Cloud slowed his approach enough to look him up and down.

“No,” he answered briskly, and kept walking. 

Despite herself, Tifa smiled. Cloud saw it and smiled back, too innocently to be fully aware of his own bad manners. It made her feel a bit guilty, but watching Cloud brush disinterestedly through socialites was the only part of this whole wretched affair to bring her any joy. 

"Thanks," she said as he handed her one of the drinks.

"Sure you don't want to go back in?" Cloud ventured. "Maybe… dance a little?"

His suggestion fell on deaf ears. Tifa’s smile had already faded against the blue light of the newscast.

"Look at this," Tifa said, gesturing incredulously to the TV screen. “They’ve announced the full details. There’s not going to be any reconstruction."

"There's _some_ reconstruction,” Cloud bargained. “They've already started above the plate, right?"

"Above the plate needs it the least."

"Well…” He folded his arms over his chest, and she took a pull from the glass. “I guess that’s what the resettlement plan is supposed to be for."

"The resettlement plan doesn't make any _sense_ , Cloud."

"But there's plenty of space for everyone in Neo-Midgar, you know?"

"Yeah, because it's half built!” Tifa replied, her voice rising. She shot a nasty glance at the gentleman from before who had turned to stare at her, but adjusted her tone to a heated whisper all the same. “There is _nothing_ there yet except for the Tower! How are people supposed to live there? Where are they even going to put them? There's no houses, there’s no neighbourhoods, no grocery stores — the stupid reactor isn't even finished! And for such a high-tech place they should work on something better than a reactor, if you ask me, but they can't just leave everyone out in the cold."

Cloud scratched his head.

"Pretty sure they’ll be in the Shinra barracks, like where you stayed."

"You can't just… uproot people like that,” Tifa continued, her shoulders drawn as she folded her arms tight across her body. “People lost homes they've lived in for generations and it's all just going to be left under the rubble. What about their jobs? Their friends, their communities? How can they ask people to leave it all behind? Only the most desperate will go, and what are they going to even do when they get there?"

"Farming and construction, mostly,” Cloud answered automatically. “Or that’s what Reeve said. It’ll help them finish the city, and support the expanding military presence."

"So then…” the pieces snapped together in Tifa’s mind. “This is all just Rufus' way of getting cheap labour. Just use all the people who can’t afford to say no."

Cloud grimaced at the floor, wishing he hadn’t answered automatically. Tifa finished her drink in silence, wishing that Cloud had brought her something stronger. The newscaster on the screen flashed a pleasant, toothy grin at the both of them, welcoming Rufus once more, on behalf of the network. Then, with the promise of news from Wutai later in the evening, they began another segment on Midgar.

“A new suspect has been identified in connection to the platefall.”

A photo of a young woman appeared on the screen. Curling brown hair framed her pale face, a mysterious smile gracing her lips. She looked flat and tired on the screen, but Tifa remembered her vivacity easily, and with all the force of a well-aimed punch to the stomach. 

“Aeris Gainsborough, 22, is being sought as a person of interest to authorities. If you have any information on her whereabouts…”

"We should go," Cloud said softly. Tifa saw the glimmer of something guilty in his face before he looked away from her, like she had turned the glare of the sun on him. Her face burned. The glass in her hand squeaked under the strength of her grip. She set it down, and with sudden purpose, took hold of Cloud’s wrist instead. He put up no resistance as she marched across the lobby with him, halting at the door to the women’s washroom.

"Tifa, what are you— if we go in there together, people will think we’re—"

"They already think that," she said sharply, shoving the door open and barrelling through it. 

Cloud squared his shoulders, gathered his nerve, and followed. On the other side of the door, he quickly and anxiously checked the stalls for occupants. To his relief, there was no one, and he locked the door behind them to keep it that way. His full attention turned to the real problem: Tifa paced across the floor like a caged animal, the heels of her palms pressed hard into her eyes.

"They're trying to say that she was— was a part of all this!"

Her voice shook with distress and ferocity as it echoed off the tile walls. The sound of her shoes clicking against the floor drummed out a frantic rhythm, at least until she kicked them furiously across the room to resume pacing in her stocking feet. She drew in uneven breaths in tremulous gulps. Cloud watched her pass back and forth through the row of mirrors, where his reflection stood helpless and mute as a post. 

"Maybe—" he began quietly, and fell silent again immediately.

"They loaded her into that ship in a _tube_! Not a day before everything happened, in a glass cage, and I _knew_ something was going on, and I asked her, and she— how could she be a suspect in the platefall, exactly? How could they wait until _so long_ after the fact and suddenly change the story, and it’s— somehow it’s on this girl who got kidnapped by terrorists, who they were keeping in a TUBE? Does it make any sense to you?"

“No," Cloud lied.

"I don't understand how they can keep doing it, they just… they can say and do whatever they want, can’t they?” 

Tifa pulled her hands away from her eyes. Cloud did his best not to shrink away from them, to see the accusations in the stark pain on her face. Tifa didn’t hold his gaze for long. She let out a furious sob as she pressed her back against the cold white wall and slid down to the floor. Another followed when she slammed her fist against the terrazzo. A crack appeared under her clenched fingers.

“They can just lie, and lie, and _lie,_ and use anyone who's convenient for them however they want, and abandon them when they're done, just like they did to Nibelheim and just like they’re planning to do to everyone in Midgar.”

Slowly, Cloud knelt down beside her. His arms were iron anchors at his sides. It felt like struggling against an enormous weight just to lift one of his hands and bring it gently and cautiously to her shoulder. Her fists unclenched, but her hands kept shaking as she brought them up to her face again.

“I can’t take it anymore," she breathed.

Her hand settled on top of his, still wet from her eyes, and squeezed. Cloud stared at her knuckles, bruised red from the crack she’d put in the floor. Was this better than the way she’d frozen like a statue after the plate fell? He remembered how flinty and how hollow her voice had been in the Shinra Tower that night. Back then, he hadn’t even managed to reach out to her like this. It was pathetic. Reaching his hand out was still such a small and useless thing to do. He was supposed to be powerful, now, but with Rufus demanding a stop to his treatments, a stop to his deployments, demanding that the entire plate come down to begin with—

"... It's Rufus," Cloud murmured.

"What?" sniffed Tifa.

"President Rufus,” Cloud repeated, stronger now. “ _He's_ the one who’s doing all this… Tifa, I want to tell you something.” He forced his eyes back up to hers, his fingers tightening against her shoulder. “Something important. I think… I think you deserve to know. But you have to want to hear it, ‘cause if I tell you, nothing is going to be the same for you ever again."

Tifa sniffed again, looking up at him. Confusion faded into sobriety and for a long moment, she was silent. She pressed the heel of her palm against her eyes once more, wiping away the last of her tears. They were full of steel instead when she levelled them on Cloud again.

"Tell me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always did want more content on Tifa being radicalized, so here we are.
> 
> Thank you to Nautiulusopus for proofreading.


	22. A Beautiful Future

During Rufus' fête, Junon had gleamed like gold and gunmetal. The tar-black sea reflected the light in every window of the military upper-city and the fireworks that crackled and popped overhead. A raucous chorus underscored them, the sound of party-goers who cared for more about the party than whatever it was meant to be for. The city dimmed as its revellers did. It was near midnight before the lights began to blink out, one by one, as the people stumbled home to bed. In the dark just before the dawn, Junon was finally quiet.

Alone on the landing dock, the lights on the Highwind stayed lit.

Inside the briefing room, Cid pumped hot water from a carafe into a paper cup. At the head of the table, Reeve sipped placidly from a cup of his own. Cid knuckled his eyes. Yawned. Tore a teabag out of the wrapper and plunked it into the steaming water. Reeve had put out milk and sugar, too. It was absurd, given the circumstances, but Cid helped himself anyway.

"You're a strange one, Reeve.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what kinda lousy mutineer sets up a refreshments table?"

"A considerate one, Cid,” Reeve said, finishing his coffee. “Best kind of mutineer there is."

The double doors to the room swung open hard and sudden enough that both men inside started. Marching through it came Tifa Lockhart, stern as stone. Red boots, red gloves, and red eyes all announced that she had not come wandering in carelessly from any party. Drifting along behind her was Cloud, looking paler and shakier than usual. The way he kept his eyes trained on Tifa announced the probable cause. 

"Fancy meetin’ you here, kiddo," said Cid, lifting his glass in greeting. 

"Cid?" Tifa stopped short as she registered him. With some confusion, she looked around the room, taking in Reeve, the carafes, the tea selection. It seemed this clandestine mutiny wasn’t quite what she had expected, either.

"Well, I do own the place," Cid drawled in response. He nodded a greeting to Cloud at her back, who returned it vaguely.

"Then... you know, too.” The steely set to her face returned. At her sides, her hands curled tight into fists. “That Rufus was responsible for the platefall, I mean."

A grave silence swelled. Tifa planted herself like a monument. She declared the truth, the one that the rest of them knew, but avoided speaking quite so plainly.

"Yeah, well,” Cid mumbled, stirring his tea just for something to do. “Wouldn’t be surprised if half my crew knew about it by now. Director of the Space Department’s an idiot, and a loudmouth. All these goddamn fat cats - no offense, Reeve - think that no one dares to listen once they lock the doors. Or worse, that just ‘cause they’re riding my ship, that I'm in their fucking pocket, no matter what they do to me or anybody else.” Cid scowled into his paper cup, took a gulp of hot tea, and set it down. “Well… they got another thing coming, don’t they."

"Indeed," Reeve said crisply. There was a lilt to his speech that was never heard within the walls of Shinra’s offices, but his chastising tone was backed by years of experience in the executive’s chair. "But only if we can all _keep secrets and follow instructions_. You were supposed to come alone, Cloud."

"Sorry,” Cloud said, not sounding sorry at all, "But Tifa deserved to know. She was on the plate when it fell. If it weren’t for — well, she might not have made it, if things had been a little different. And she can help us, ‘cause a lot of people know her and trust her. So I told her.”

Cloud stepped forward to stand stalwart at Tifa’s side. He pulled himself taller, more certain, and stared Reeve down, even more stubborn than usual. Reeve only shook his head and grimaced. 

"Reeve,” said Tifa, staring directly at him. “I know you. You're the director of Urban Planning, aren't you?"

"... Yes,” he said warily.

"Reeve,” Tifa took a step forward. “I know I wasn't supposed to be here tonight - that I wasn't even supposed to know about —” her voice shook, “about the plate. But… But even if I didn’t know what he’d done, I’d know enough to bring me here. I could have died, but it’s not just about me. _Shinra keeps hurting people_. I want to make them stop. I'm not sure what I can do - I can fight, or keep talking on TV, or stay with the people on the ground - but I'll do whatever I have to, so please... let me join you. I’ll help however I can.” She lifted her chin a little higher. “I can’t keep standing still."

She held Reeve’s gaze until it shifted to Cloud. Cid watched over the edge of his tea, looking far too amused. Reeve sighed in resignation. He sank back into the chair, fingers tented and resigned to adjusting his machinations. Victory in hand, Cloud deflated a little.

"Alright then, Ms. Lockhart,” he relented. “Or should I call you Tifa?"

"Tifa, please."

"Very well. I suppose the cat’s out of the bag, as it were, so you can count yourself as one of us. We’ll find a place for you somewhere.”

“Thank you,” Tifa nodded, a smile flickering across her face. “I won’t let you down, promise.”

Behind her, Cloud peered around the room, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“Speaking of cats, I didn’t think you’d be here in person,” he admitted. “Figured you’d be bringing your weird robot thing."

“Well, I wouldn’t want to disturb his nap,” joked Reeve.

“... Huh?” Cloud frowned, confused.

“Besides,” Reeve tried again, “You’ll be the one playing the cat’s paw this time.”

“... What’s a cat’s paw?” asked Cloud, frowning deeper. Cid groaned.

“It’s a person who—” Reeve sighed. “Nevermind. You don’t get it.”

“I got it, Reeve,” Cid said flatly, cutting the explanation short. “You’re just not funny, man.”

“Anyway,” said Reeve crisply, clearing his throat, “We’d best be getting on with it.” He gestured to the table. Tifa and Cloud took their seats across from Cid, all of them snapping to attention. “Everyone here knows what black-hearted a thing Rufus has done. We know that it cannot be allowed to stand. What you must also know is that we are not alone. We’ve many allies who have reached the same conclusion as us. The Shinra company needs to change, and those of us on the inside have a responsibility to make that change. Rufus Shinra must be made to step down as President, and he must be held accountable."

"So what’s the plan?” Cid asked. “We gonna send in Cloud here to boot his ass out onto the pavement?”

“Good idea, Cid.” Cloud said, folding his arms. “Sounds pretty tough, but I’m game.”

"No,” said Reeve. “We'll use due process and the opinion of the public to oust Rufus. Force is an important contingency, but a last resort. As it currently stands, we’re well outgunned anyway. Heidegger, Scarlet and the Turks were all heavily involved in platefall. They’ll side with Rufus, and they’ll need to be brought down as well."

“That’s… all of Shinra’s military and defence, though,” Tifa frowned.

“Aye, on paper,” Reeve nodded. “The reality is more complex. SOLDIER began with the Science Department. Professor Hojo lacks his old fervour for the program, but the labs tend to wield far more influence over SOLDIERs than Public Security.”

“To most SOLDIERs, Hojo’s got just as much authority as Heidegger. Maybe more, since only me and the rest of the Firsts ever really deal with his orders and pass ‘em on to the others,” Cloud added. 

“Meaning that with Cloud and the Science Department on our side, we’ll have SOLDIER for insurance if things turn nasty.” Reeve pressed both his palms to the table, leaning against it. “But before it comes to that, we’ll go through the board. With a 3-2 vote, we can oust Rufus, indict him, and hold a public trial. The people will know what he’s done.”

“I can handle Palmer,” grunted Cid. “Should be easy. He’s a sack of shit, but he’s the only person I know that wants enough budget to get into orbit more than I do.”

Reeve nodded. “And you’ve got a relationship with Professor Hojo, don’t you, Cloud?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Cloud muttered, rubbing his forehead with one hand.

“Then once we’ve located him, you’ll be responsible for bringing him on board.” Reeve paused for a moment. “And Tifa, too. Might be wise that you brought her.”

“What?” Cloud protested, still massaging his temple. “Why? I can go alone.”

“It’s apparent that diplomacy is a stronger suit for her than for you.” Cloud fell silent and avoided Tifa’s eye. Considering the matter settled, Reeve continued. “I’ll see to the rest of the preparations.”

Wincing, Cloud got to his feet. Tifa watched him, distracted, as he headed toward the carafe for a cup of tea.

“Are you alright, Cloud?”

“Mmhmm.” He rolled his wrist in the air. “Keep talking, I’m listening.”

“If you say so,” said Cid, eyeing Cloud. “We can keep using the Highwind as our base of operations. Won’t raise much suspicion if this group travels together, and it’ll be easy to keep meetings away from prying eyes.”

“Then let’s make first contact with Palmer and locate Professor Hojo, and we’ll reconvene.” Reeve straightened out again, adopting an air of finality. “I’ll be in touch as discreetly as possible.”

“Excuse me,” Tifa cut in. “There’s something you didn’t explain.”

“What is it?” asked Reeve, genuinely surprised at the prospect of having missed anything at all.

“Once Rufus is gone, then what?”

She frowned hard at Reeve while he considered her question, selecting his words carefully.

“We’ll have to work with our allies to determine a new power structure and implement reforms, of course,” he said slowly. “I’m sure Palmer and Hojo will have their own demands that will need to be taken into account. It won’t be easy, and it will require some measure of political savvy, but I’ll be up to the task.”

Neither Cid nor Cloud batted an eye. Tifa’s stomach twisted.

“I see,” she said, staring hard. “So you’ll be taking over Shinra, in other words?”

“Only in the interim,” Reeve answered gently. It gave her some assurance that he seemed to understand the gravity of the question, even though the interloper in the room had asked it. “I know how it looks, but someone needs to assume a role of leadership. It’s my belief that of Shinra’s existing leadership, my presence here tonight makes me the most qualified for the job. Not to mention, the most likely to give it up when the time has come.”

Tifa considered him. He seemed to believe what he was saying, that much was true. Still, it was easy enough to say that you were going to lead the most powerful and influential organization on the Planet into a brighter, better tomorrow, wasn’t it? It was easy to say that you’d be able to walk away from all that power. It was even easy enough to mean it.

“... Alright,” Tifa said eventually. Even if she felt wary, it wasn’t as though she had any better ideas. No realistic ones, anyway - a future without the Shinra Electric Power Company in it at all was nothing more than a dream.

* * *

“Get him, Yuffie! Go for the throat!” Aeris called from her spot on the grassy sidelines, her hands cupped around her mouth.

Fort Condor’s facilities were all somewhat cobbled together, and the training yard was no different. Training dummies that looked more like scarecrows and makeshift wooden weapon racks leaned up against the walls enclosing the yard. Squares of dusty earth with fading lines drawn through them marked each would-be arena. Standing in the centre ring, Sephiroth looked back at her over his shoulder and shot Aeris a drawn look of exasperation. 

“Yes, rah rah!” Red added cheerfully. “Though you have no teeth to go for the throat with, so perhaps use your lower centre of gravity to your advantage?”

Standing opposite Sephiroth, Yuffie grinned wide at her admirers and struck a heroic pose.

“That’s right, the crowd goes wild for our bright young star!” Hefting her shuriken, she pointed dramatically at Sephiroth, who grimaced back at her. “Your time’s up, old man!”

“Man, you gotta quit callin’ us old,” Barret shook his head. “Keep talking like that and you’re gonna have a breakdown when you hit twenty.” The old wooden bench creaked under him as he took a seat next to Aeris. “Why’re you two cheerleading anyway?”

“Because Yuffie really needs the support,” said Red earnestly.

“What?!” Yuffie shouted, scandalized. “I do not!”

“Yeah, I love a good underdog story,” Aeris grinned.

“Ha, well she’s definitely the underdog,” Barret laughed. “You two ain’t seen ‘em spar before, but I’ve lost count of how many times he’s knocked her on her ass. Gotta respect her fighting spirit, I guess.”

“It won’t be like that this time!” fumed Yuffie. “I’m telling you guys! You’re watching history in the making!”

"Oh yeah?” said Aeris brightly. “You wanna bet a hundred gil on it?"

“Oogh,” said Yuffie, narrowing her eyes at Aeris across the pitch. “You’re salty, huh?”

“Me? Never. I’m the sweet one,” Aeris beamed.

“You’re getting very into this, aren’t you,” Sephiroth frowned at Aeris.

"Well, if you want me to cheer you on instead,” she grinned wider, “You only have to ask!"

With a sound between a scoff and a laugh, Sephiroth turned his face away and shook his head. Aeris caught him smirking to himself all the same. It faded when he lifted Masamune to shoulder-height, holding himself with the control, confidence and poise that bringing a deadly weapon to a friendly match demanded. He was ready. Across from him, Yuffie grit her teeth, adjusted her grip on her shuriken, and assumed her own ready stance.

“Alright!” she shouted, her face determined. “Let’s do this thing!” 

Barret, Red and Aeris were a dutiful audience. They cheered on all of Yuffie’s gains, which were mostly crowded into the beginning of the match. They winced and shouted warnings as she lost more and more ground. They settled into polite and conciliatory clapping as her losses mounted against her and the outcome became inevitable. Then, when Yuffie finally conceded and collapsed into the dirt, lying flat on her back with her limbs splayed out, they all moved into the ring to sit with her in her defeat.

While they crowded in and Yuffie tried to catch her breath, Sephiroth stood over her and shared his observations, not a hair out of place. 

“Your form is improving, but you’re making the same mistakes you usually do. Your strikes are predictable, and you still favour the right side.” Sephiroth looked down at her, making sure she was listening to his evenly-delivered lecture. “You did well to take advantage of your range early on, but you gave up too much ground too quickly. Never let your opponent dictate your movements. You need to control the flow of battle to gain the upper hand.”

“When I rule Wutai,” Yuffie wheezed, pushing herself upright by the palms, “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Goals are important,” Sephiroth smirked. “Up, then. Again.”

“Ugh! Slavedriver! I need to rest first!” 

“You know, Yuffie,” Aeris mused, “You never mentioned before that you’re a princess.”

“That one’s a real shocker, huh?” Barret grinned.

“Shut it,” snapped Yuffie.

“She’s not quite a princess,” Sephiroth explained. “The Kisaragi clan have been Wutai's stewards for centuries now. Yuffie is simply the next in line. Once Lord Godo steps down, she’ll inherit his responsibility to lead Wutai and its people.”

“Sounds like a princess to me,” Aeris shrugged at him. “I'm surprised you two get along so well when that’s the case.” Sephiroth gave her a quizzical look that made it plain he found her allegations about getting along with Yuffie quite puzzling. Aeris elaborated. “It’s just, with the war and all, you’d think there’d be more bad blood between you.”

“Oh, I hated Sephiroth when he first showed up,” Yuffie said matter-of-factly. “Kept hoping he’d get his legs blown off by Shinra landmines.”

“Seems harsh,” murmured Red, glancing worriedly down at his own paws. “Why did you change your mind, then?”

“‘Cause of what happened when he started fighting for Wutai. I don’t think most people realize the kind of power SOLDIERs have outside of swinging a sword around - I didn’t, anyway. It wasn’t just that we got the inside information and firepower to push Shinra back and end the occupation. What really changed things was that people started coming to Wutai from all over.”

“Shinra fanned that fire as well,” Sephiroth murmured. “They sent SOLDIERs I knew after me once I had left, hoping to bring me back into the fold. When I refused, they were outraged. They wanted everyone to know I was a traitor, and that I was conspiring with the enemy.”

“But all the people who already learned the hard way not to trust the Shinra read between the lines,” Barret jumped in, making a determined fist of his good hand. “They realized there was someplace they could go that was still fighting back. I headed there after Corel. The resistance has only been growin’ ever since. Most of the leaders are still in Wutai, but we got outposts like this, now. Not too long ago it’d be unimaginable.”

Barret looked up, and everyone followed his eye around the yard. One thing they had all noticed about the Fort was just how many people it harboured. There were always people moving and chattering, all of them as lively as they were hardscrabble. Other parties had set up elsewhere in the training yard, organizing equally friendly matches amoungst themselves and laughing at the outcomes. Up on the wall, a familiar young runner brought tea and sandwiches to the watches. She stopped to chat with each of them along the way. The place might be patched-together, but it seemed to suit the spirit of the resistance members who called the place home.

“Wutai’s got a lot on its shoulders,” Barret continued sagely. “It’s got the power and resources to go up against the Shinra, but it’s got something else, too. People can’t remember what life could be like without Shinra. Wutai’s starting to show them.”

“It’s not that easy, though. The war took so much from us,” said Yuffie, laying back on the dirt with her hands behind her head. She stared up into the sky as she spoke, and despite the unusual seriousness of what she had to say, she didn’t skip a bit. “The people who knew all the old ways, who were gonna pass down our way of life to their kids? So many of them are gone. Generations of knowledge and practice wiped out just like that because all the historians and seamstresses had to figure out how to swing a spear if they wanted to have a homeland to defend anymore.” 

Aeris folded her hands together as she listened to Yuffie. A lost way of life - the story had struck a resonant chord. When she looked up at Sephiroth, she was surprised to see he had turned away.

“Not everybody’s gone, but the ones who are left, like my dad - they’re not the same. They’re still fighting. My dad’s pretty tough, but he could die at any time. I think about it a lot, ‘cause that’s been reality all my life. He’s probably safer now than he’s ever been, but I still feel the same as ever: If anything happens, I gotta be ready to take over.” Yuffie reached her hand up, facing her palm to the sun. Her fingers closed inwards. “I gotta make sure Wutai stays free, that people keep coming and helping us stay strong, and that the seamstresses get to go back to seamstressing.”

She lowered her hand and opened her fingers again, no sun caught in her grasp.

“Wish it weren’t sitting on your shoulders, Yuffie,” Barret said soberly, “but we got your back, and don’t ever forget it. Besides, you're talking about the kind of leadership we're gonna need. There’s gotta be some kind of future after the fighting. If we do our jobs right, it means we step back once it’s over. The people who know how to build and grow take over, and I’ll trade this arm out for something that makes sense in the new world.”

Barret’s eyes shut for a moment as he held his hand to the barrel on his arm, imbued with his hopes for the future. Smiling a little, he lifted his eyes up to the blue expanse above as well. Sephiroth’s voice broke the peaceful quiet.

“We’re going to need to crush Shinra first,” he reminded them darkly. 

“True enough,” conceded Barret, letting both his arms fall back to his sides.

“I’m surprised,” Red mused. “Yuffie’s more thoughtful than she seems.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yuffie snapped, sitting up again.

“Cosmo Canyon might have important knowledge for you,” Red continued, undeterred. “The valley of fallen stars has always been independent from Shinra. We’ve also sheltered those who have abandoned Shinra - my grandfather being one such person. We believe that people who wish to learn and grow alongside the Planet can come from anywhere.”

“Hmm.” Yuffie laid a finger thoughtfully alongside her chin. “Really? I was just hoping to get better with materia to smash up Shinra.”

“Perhaps if you keep that to yourself, the elders will share their wisdom with you. Though I may need to tell them to look past your childishness...”

“Hey!”

Red and Barret chuckled, and Aeris laughed along with them. It was her turn now to look up into the vast and limitless blue and wonder where she would be when - if - no, _when_ the fighting stopped. Barret said they needed people who knew how to grow things, and she knew growing gardens better than almost everything. Maybe there could be some place for her in their future. Her own had been uncertain for so long. The hope of filling it with flowers and friends felt as fragile as it was precious.

“It sounds like a beautiful future to fight for,” she smiled.

When she lowered her eyes from the sky, she searched out Sephiroth with them. With conspicuous silence, he had stepped a short distance away from where they had gathered. Aeris tipped her head and managed to catch his eye. “What about you, Sephiroth? Where do you think you’ll be?”

She read the uncertainty in his face and had her answer before he could even drop his eyes to the ground. Turning his face and Masamune’s point away from the group, he proceeded into the rote movements of a mastered kata while he answered.

“I try not to think about it.”

Maybe it had been careless to ask, she thought, frowning at his back. The future might not be as tenuous for him as it was for her, but neither Shinra nor the struggle against them would have prepared him for any growing or building. No wonder, then, that he saw no place for himself in their beautiful future. She resolved once again to teach him how to garden - it seemed wrong to be an Ancient apart from the earth - but that would need to be a later project. Aeris pulled to her feet.

“Hey,” she called to him, her hands clasped behind her back. “If you’ve still got the energy, how ‘bout we have a match of our own? We got all that new materia, so I could use some practice, too.”

The graceful arc of his sword stopped abruptly. Sephiroth looked back over his shoulder with his brows raised.

“Oh?” His posture relaxed as he turned around to face her, lowering the sword to his side. “Pretty bold. Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah, I eat SOLDIER boys for breakfast. You’d better not underestimate me,” she teased, planting her hands on her hips.

Sephiroth smiled.

“I would never.”

As Aeris bounded over to the benches where she’d left her staff, the others followed her back to the sidelines.

“Go Aeris!” shouted Red at her back.

“Hey! Have some faith in me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a bit longer than usual so sorry for that, but the gang's nearly all here in this one!
> 
> So yeah, we're sticking with Reeve, but I'll still try to make him feel like the kind of middle aged corporate executive who pilots a gambling fairy cat on the side.
> 
> I figure that part of why Yuffie is so obsessed with accumulating force and glory is because of how hard it was for her to see Wutai give up. In a world where they kept fighting, I think she could set some of her natural chaos gremlin tendencies aside to see the other, more nuanced things that were lost in a homeland she dearly loves.
> 
> Thank you to la_regina_scrive for chapter feedback.


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